


Hail to the King, Baby

by KingMTT



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Downward Spiral, Gen, Hurt/Comfort-ish, King Mettaton (Undertale), Mettaton Cries A Lot, Minor Mettaton/Papyrus (Undertale), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Undertale Neutral Route - King Mettaton Ending, This ain't gonna be a happy one folks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-02-16 07:33:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21504181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingMTT/pseuds/KingMTT
Summary: With so many important people either dead or missing, Mettaton takes the throne. And everything is just perfect, isn't it? Just perfect, nothing is wrong!Nothing is wrong, he says as the world goes up in pink, glittery flames.(A fic detailing Mettaton's time as king of the Underground.)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 33





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so first things first *claps* this fic ain't gonna be a happy one folks.
> 
> Second things second, it is tagged as Papyton because I probably will imply them to have some sort of relationship, and Papyrus definitely is going to be the one for most of the Hurt/comfort ish scenes. But it's not a central part of the story, really. This fic is mostly focusing on Mettaton and his character, and my personal feelings about what happens in this ending because I feel like a lot of the people who make content about this where Mettaton is an evil dictator severely misunderstand his character.
> 
> Third things third! This fic is kind of headcanon heavy, because I have a lot of thoughts about Mettaton's character. One headcanon that I'd like to mention here because it's not going to be brought up by name in the fic even though it plays a part in Mettaton's actions is I hc Mettaton has untreated, undiagnosed NPD. This absolutely plays into a lot of his actions in this fic, but not in a like - really awful way, if that makes sense? It's not demonized is what I'm trying to say.
> 
> ANYWAY this is an AU I'm passionate about so!! I hope this is good.

“Y’ wait your turn, just like the rest of ‘em.”

The rat monster currently stationed outside the castle looked toward the skeleton sat on a stool, and then up at the gilded doors he was “guarding”, in the absolute loosest sense of the word. She had to wonder how those doors had been replaced so fast, it had only been a few weeks that Mettaton had come into power. But in those few weeks it seemed like the entire castle, and most of New Home, had already been remodeled. The formerly simplistic wooden doors now gold, covered in intricate filigree, and embedded with heart shaped pink gems.

And closed, might she add. Which was very different indeed.

“And...how long has the last person been in there?” Peeling her eyes away from the door, she looked toward the stout skeleton. Still sitting on his stool, hadn’t moved an inch since she got here. Chin leaned into his hand, the halfmoon shape of his eyelights giving off an impression that his eyes were half-lidded.

“Ain’t a last person.”, he replied.  
  
“Then..” The rat scrunched up her face in confusion, failing to hide her frustration. “What am I waiting for?”” 

She tried to not sound as exasperated as she felt, but, god, she couldn’t help it. What could the king possibly be doing? She’d been here for an hour! At least! And this smug skeleton was _far_ from pleasant company.

Once more, Sans shrugged, “Dunno, kingly duties, ‘spose.” 

And not five minutes more, did the doors finally swing open. Pulled inward by two of the Royal Guard (who had also gotten a makeover, their armor now the same hot pink sparkly color as the king’s chestplate) to reveal their new ruler, standing there poised perfectly in full regalia. Of course he’d rehearsed his dramatic entrance to visitors.

Speaking of regalia - add that to the list of changes. A pink velvet robe with glittery white fur trimming, Asgore’s simplistic crown being discarded for something much more extravagant and covered in pink hearts, and a sceptre, something Asgore never had.  
  
_But Asgore’s gone now,_ The rat monster had to remind herself, _Of course things are going to be different._  
  
She was pulled out of her thoughts by the sound of heels on tile, looking up to see Mettaton speedwalking towards his visitor. “Oh, goodness gracious, my apologies, darling!” 

He stopped in front of her, focusing on some of the rings on his fingers instead of the other monster. Giving the impression he had gotten distracted by the sparkles, like some sort of ADHD 5 year old, “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting, my I got so busy trying to pick out what jewelry I wanted to wear today, I lost track of the time.”

The rat once more looked towards Sans, who shrugged. “What’d I tell ya’? Kingly duties.”  
  
Mettaton pulled his attention away from his gaudy decorations, wrapping his hand back around his scepter and grinning widely at the monster, the glitter coating his vampiric fangs catching the light inside the castle. “Anywho! I’m finished with that now, so, please, feel free to come in!”

He turned back toward the interior of the castle, waving a beckoning hand toward her before walking back in. The rat monster started to follow, and stumbled backwards to avoid being swept up in the long, trailing cape. Did it really need to be that big?  
  
Once she had decided he was a safe distance ahead of her, she continued to pad along behind him. As she walked, the monster continued to examine the changes to the interior of the castle as well. Stained glass windows depicting their new ruler, all in monochromatic pink, had been installed. As well as statues, posters, it looked like some sort of tapestry was in the works...Asgore’s flowerbed had been kept in place, perhaps out of respect. That wasn’t to say it had no changes as well, another statue had been placed in the center of it. This one of someone the rat didn’t immediately recognize, some sort of lizard-like monster, one hand placed on her hip and the other holding a clipboard, chest puffed out and smiling confidently. Unfortunately, the visitor of the castle was ushered by it too fast to read the placard.

The throne room was soon reached, as it wasn’t too long of a walk. Mettaton took a few steps up a small flight of stairs that lead up to the throne. Throwing himself haphazardly across it, lounging more than sitting. His legs were swung over one arm rest, while the other he propped his elbow against it to press his palm against his cheek. 

The rat was allowed a moment to look around the throne room, she had to admit she was a bit uncomfortable with the gratious display of wealth. Littered around the throne room, especially at the base of the king’s seating, was various items that were clearly only there to show off. Elaborate vases of pink flowers, mainly roses, a cake tower directly by the throne - it was hard to tell if the pink confectionaries and baked treats were covered in real or edible glitter. Mettaton would’ve probably eaten it either way. Pink, gold, and glitter coated stuffed animals everywhere, the throne itself replaced with some fluffy pink and rose gold. Of course the thing that caught her attention the most was the thing on top of the throne.

Mounted on the very top of the back was a goat skull with horns in a familiar shape, draped around the sides was a large, worn violet cape, held onto the throne with gold shoulder pauldrons. 

If that was supposed to be some sort of homage, it was very much in poor taste.  
  
“Now!” Mettaton said, catching the monster’s attention away from the morbid memorial. “What’s your name, dear?”

“Matilda,” The rat responded, folding her hands against her chest.  
  
“Matilda!” Mettaton repeated, “Lovely name, very antique! I like it! Now, tell me, Matilda, darling, what’s troubling your pretty little head?”  
  
The rat tried to maintain eye contact, but she found it kind of uncomfortable to stare into the sole artificial eye of their robot ruler. Though she’d never say it outloud, she was always sort of uncomfortable with how Mettaton’s face moved. Uncanny valley, she believed the term was. The glittering pink iris, constantly shifting pupil shape, doe-eyed and glassy, set in a face that was just too perfect, too much like a porcelain doll. Meant to be cute and pretty, but the softened depiction of reality just..wasn’t normal. But she knew she held the unpopular opinion, most the Underground found Mettaton beautiful. To each their own, she supposed.

So caught up in her pondering she was, she almost missed those too perfect, black painted lips twitching into a frown. “No need to be shy, love, I don’t bite.”  
“Oh, oh! I’m sorry, your majesty.” Matilda pulled her attention away from the mechanics of Mettaton’s face, instead choosing to focus somewhere else to give the illusion of eye contact, minus the discomfort. “It’s my wife, sir. Ever since that human came through, she’s been missing. I, didn’t want to assume the worst, but it’s been so long with no sign of her…” she sighed, looking towards the ground. “I’d at least like to ask if an effort could be made to retrieve her dust? Just to give me something to mourn over.

Mettaton frowned more deeply, sitting up straight in his chair and giving Matilda a sympathetic glance. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry for your loss. I can relate! A lot of important people have been missing lately, take my dear Alphys for example-” he gestured toward the lizard statue in the flower garden. _That’s_ who that was supposed to be?? Matilda had to grimace, it didn’t look much like her, from the few times she’d run into the Royal Scientist. Maybe the confident pose, trimmer build, and tidier clothes was a bit more flattering than the hunchbacked, handwringing gait Matilda was familiar with. 

“But!” Once more Matilda was pulled to look at Mettaton. “I wouldn’t jump to worst case scenario so fast, hun! A lot of monsters got scattered after that whole incident. We are still finding live missing people! Either way-” he stood up, and walked up to the rat, taking one of her hands in both of his. “I _promise_ , darling. I will definitely make an effort for your poor wife.”  
  
He gave her a comforting smile, and then removed one of his hands to hold it out to the side of him. A clear, pink clipboard was placed in his hand by one of his servants, and shoved into Matilda’s grasp. “Just fill this out with your information, your wife’s information, if you’re looking for a living or dead person, or if you don’t care what state they’re found in. I recommend bringing one article of her clothing to one of the dogs, and hand it to a guard on your way out.” He spoke fast, almost too fast for Matilda to process as she glanced briefly at the form shoved in her hands. Even the paper was pastel pink, at the top written in fancy cursive the words “ _Missing Persons Effort”_. A guard placed a hand on her back, and she was turned to be led back out the door.

“Ciao, darling, good luck~!”  
  
The doors once more slammed shut with a heavy sound, and Mettaton laid back down as he was before. Dropping his grin and pressing fingers into the corners of his eyes, letting out a long sigh.  
  
“That wasn’t very nice, Mettaton.” 

Mettaton looked up toward the source of the voice, finding his other royal advisor, the one that was actually useful, frowning at him. Mettaton returned that with a smile.  
  
“Oh, Papy-dear! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean for it to come out so, oh, uncaring?” He tapped his fingers against his lips. “It’s just when I’ve had to repeat the same spiel over and over again. It becomes - “ another pause, trying to think of a metaphor. “Like an over rehearsed script! You’re no longer speaking from your heart, you’re just repeating words you’ve trained on too much like a rob-” 

He cut himself off. “No offense, but I’m glad your brother wasn’t around to hear that one.”

Mettaton stretched his legs out straight, throwing his hands behind his head and settling in a bit more comfortably. “Besides! I’m still trying to find Alphys, I can’t be worrying about the dozens of other missing monsters when she’s still MIA.”

Papyrus tilted his head. "Forgive me for speaking plainly, Mettaton, but isn't it your job as the king to worry about all of the other monsters?"

Mettaton popped his eye back open, and pouted, “Why? They can worry about themselves, can’t they?”

Papyrus blinked, expression not changing. "I suppose that's true! They can! Stress is very bad for you after a while. And I suppose having to worry about every single monster would be VERY stressful."

Mettaton nodded slowly in agreement. “Exactly~! Anyways, the Royal Guard is taking care of all that missing people stuff. Which! Leaves me to focus on much more important things.”  
  
He gripped onto the handles of the arm rests, and pulled himself up to his feet, fixing the clasp of his cape as he started to walk away. Then he froze, as if he had forgotten something, and turned back to look at his extravagant chair. Tapping one foot and placing a hand on his chin, he hummed to himself. Suddenly, his pupil turned to a little exclamation mark, having a little ‘a-ha!’ moment. Walking back towards the throne, he plucked a rose from one of the many vases, and stretched his arm up to stuff it into the eye socket of the goat skull. 

“Like that! It looks much more pretty that way, doesn’t it?”  
  
Papyrus looked up at the large, foreboding faux skull of Asgore. Fake or not, it was still a bit creepy. But, he guessed it did make for a nice memorial piece, and the rose did certainly add character! Though, he had to think Asgore would’ve preferred golden flowers..  
  
“It looks very nice…” he remarked, turning back to where Mettaton was very obviously waiting for his praise.

“Oh, I know, it’s just perfect. Asgore would’ve loved it.” Mettaton cooed, taking a moment to examine his handiwork once more before finally turning around again to continue his stroll down another hallway. He held his scepter to his chest at an angle and hummed a little tune as he walked, “Anyway! As I was saying, there’s still my beautification project that’s been eating up so much of my time. That’s top priority! Everything will be so much happier once things are nicer to look at.”

Papyrus was forced to a sudden stop as Mettaton came to an abrupt halt in the hallway, turning around to poke his scepter at Papyrus’s chest. “Not to speak ill of the dearly departed, but that’s where Asgore went wrong, you see. He was so focused on getting to the Surface he never even stopped to try and make things happier down here. He left it up to us, well, up to me, let’s be honest here. To do that. So, see, I’m already a better ruler than he ever was~!”

Papyrus nodded. "That's also true. It's always best for people to make best of any situation they're given. Even if..." He frowned, "I think a lot of monsters would really like to get to the Surface one day... no matter how pretty the Underground is."

“In time, darling, in time.” Mettaton responded, brushing off Papyrus’s concern and continuing down the hallway. They continued in silence until he made a sharp turn to walk out onto a balcony. Picking up the pace as he dropped his sceptre haphazardly, the bejewelled staff clattering to the ground and being forgotten about for the time being. Mettaton rushing up to the railing, wrapping his fingers around the gilded, per usual, pink and gold architecture to look down at the in progress construction to New Home. He grinned widely to himself, already things were looking so much better! Everything looked so gold, and pink, and sparkly! And of course, there was the various depictions of himself - which was the surefire way to boost his mood. 

“Things are going to be better than ever, Papyrus, dear. Mark my words on that one!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (john mulaney voice) and then they didn't

“You know, I hate this stuff.” Mettaton mused, staring at the frosted pink wineglass in his hand as he twirled it gently. Full to near the brim with a wine in such a deep red it looked like the color of blood. Pausing in his idle hand movements, Mettaton brought the glass to his lips, tilting it slightly to take a sip. And then pulled it away with a grimace, holding the thing out in front of him and shaking out his head.

“Alcohol?” Papyrus asked, looking up from where he had been ordered to do, quote “something”, by Mettaton. So, he’d decided to spend his time sorting the flowers in their vases to something a bit neater looking, and to reorganize the throne room a bit.

“Oh, heavens no. I love alcohol.” Mettaton examined the offending cup for a moment, deciding to give up on it and set it on an empty spot on the cake tower. Leaning most his body against that armrest, knees pulled up so he was more crouching on the chair then sitting on it, smushing his cheek and examining the wineglass boredly. “I drink it straight without any mixers all the time, honestly it’s one of my favorite flavors after sugar.” 

“Oh,” Papyrus looked down with a blank expression for a moment, then set his gaze back up to the king. “What do you hate, then?”  
  
“I don’t like wine.” Mettaton reached his hand out, putting one finger on the side of the glass and gently pushing it over. The deep red liquid spilling off the cake tower and onto the floor. Mettaton watched the flow of liquor, expression unchanging. 

Papyrus, on the other hand, sighed and put down his flowers. Producing a rag from his pocket and walking over to begin cleaning it up.

“Mettaton! You must be more careful! You made a mess!” The skeleton wrapped his fingers around the stem of the glass, putting it back up right, giving the shelf a quick wipe before getting down on one knee to wipe up the majority of the spill.

Mettaton rolled his eye, not even seeming to care much about Papyrus’s concern over his mess. He replaced his hand under his chin, watching the skeleton work in silence for a minute before continuing his spiel about the wine he ended up despising.

“It’s just not really my style, you know? I much prefer flavored hard liquor. Say, Papy. Have you ever tried cake vodka? It’s quite delicious!”

Papyrus shook his head, standing back up with the damp cleaning rag. “Mettaton. I’ve never had a drop of alcohol in my life.”

“Aww,” Mettaton pouted, pulling himself away from the armrest to sit more normally. Kicking one leg over the other and bouncing his foot. “That’s a shame.”  
  
“Though I do have to ask.” Papyrus continued on as he put the wet rag aside, and took the time, while he was over here, to tidy up the arrangement of the cupcakes on the stand to fill in that empty spot. “If you hate wine, why drink it? Wouldn’t it be better to just drink something you like?”

“It’s a status thing,” Mettaton shrugged. “That’s always what they drink in human films to show they’re high class, always wine. Some sort of expensive label that they make a big deal out of and pour into pretty glasses.”

Mettaton twirled his wrist in a circle as he spoke. “But, I guess you are right, darling. I don’t _have_ to be forced to drink the stuff just because it’s standard. It’s definitely not very flattering to watch me grimace and force the stuff down.”

Pulling himself back into that weird crouch, his torso disappeared over the opposite armrest to Papyrus, popping back up with a bottle of strawberry vodka he kept near the throne. Always have to keep your essentials close, after all! Especially for something as important as perching all pretty and regal in your special king chair. Sitting back down more comfortably, Mettaton twirled the cap off, and scooped up the wind glass he had recently, eh, “emptied”. He poured himself a drink of his preferred poison, and took a sip before speaking again. 

“Maybe I could reach some sort of compromise, maybe I could put red food dye in it, or-”

The doors opened with a loud noise, cutting off whatever Mettaton was going to say. Mettaton fell deathly quiet, putting on a serious face as a member of the Royal Guard marched down the hall into the throne room. 

“You know, I was just having a lovely conversation with my darling assistant over here. So this had better be good.”

Before speaking, the Guard bowed low, pulling her hood back to reveal her face as she stood back up. Dogaressa frowned deeply, but waited her turn to speak. Oh! Now Mettaton was interested! All of the dogs were stationed on the Missing Persons Effort, so this sound be good! Mettaton nodded to signal she could speak.

“I’m sorry, your majesty, but we have news I think you would be interested in.” Dogaressa said, sounding somber.”

Well, maybe not good. But interesting was still on the table.

Mettaton frowned, “Well, don’t keep me on pins and needles, darling. Spit it out. I’m a busy man, you know.”

“We, uhm,” Dogaressa sighed, “We found Dr. Alphys.”

Mettaton jolted out of his chair, the wine glass being forgotten about entirely as it shattered to the floor. Causing Papyrus to make a frustrated noise at yet _another_ mess due to Mettaton’s carelessness.

“You did? Oh my god! Thank goodness! Where is she?” Mettaton babbled, a grin so wide on his face it looked like it must’ve hurt. He ran up toward Dogaressa, looking all around her for his missing friend. Not seeming to process she was no where in the room.

Dogaressa turned her head away from the king’s eager face, muzzle pulled into a frown. Wordlessly, she reached into the pocket of her robe, and held out something to Mettaton. It was just a piece of paper, something lined and looked like it had been torn out of a notebook, crumbled into someone’s pocket and forgotten about. Mettaton gave the dog a confused look, and Dogaressa remained silent. Mettaton snatched the paper out of her paws, unfolding it and beginning to read it over.

 _‘I don’t even know why I’m writing this. I doubt anyone will find it…_ _  
_ _I doubt anyone will even care. It’s not like anyone ever did.’_

Mettaton’s grin fell sharply, and if his face wasn’t already naturally pale, it would’ve turned white.

_‘Undyne’s gone, I watched the human kill her. I watched it and I didn’t - I didn’t do anything? Why didn’t I do anything? I mean, I guess there’s not much I could’ve done...But I feel like I should’ve done something. But! I didn’t! Because I’m a fucking coward! Because I’m fucking useless!_

_Mettaton...I’m kidding myself, Mettaton was just using me to get his body. He was always planning to run off and leave me in the dirt. It was stupid of me to ever hope otherwise._

_I don’t really have any other ties left to stay alive for._

_The amalgamates will...sort themselves out_

_Maybe someone else will find them and figure out what happened, and I won’t be around to deal with the backlash._

_I guess...I just want to say sorry, to whoever does find that. I don’t know what else to say._

_Bye._

_~Alphys’_

“Dogamy is collecting her dust into an urn.” Dogaressa spoke quietly, watching as Mettaton’s visible eye frantically scanned back and forth across the page. “He’s only not here right now because, uh, we found something else down there, and-“

“Y-You’re joking, aren’t you?” Mettaton looked up from the paper, gripping it so tightly it looked like it might rip. “This is some, elaborate, awful joke?” 

Dogaressa’s ears perked a little higher in surprise. “No, sir. That would be a really horrible joke to play on anyone.” Fidgeting uncomfortably with her axe, struggling to find words of comfort. “I..know this is a shock, and I’m, uh, really sorry for your loss…”

Mettaton didn’t respond, his whole body shivering. He didn’t even register any of her words, just sank to his knees with a loud clang that echoed out in the throne room. One hand going to claw at his head, fingers threading through his hair as he read the note over and over. 

_‘Mettaton was just using me to get his body….It was stupid of me to ever hope otherwise.’_

_‘Mettaton was just using me to get his body.’_

_‘Mettaton was just using me.’_

No matter how many times he read it, it stung just as much as the first time. Squeezing his eyes shut, he moved his hand down to press into his eyes, shaking with the effort of held back tears.

Dogaressa kept silent, knowing her words would be either meaningless or unheard, “Uhm, if you’d like, we could also go through the lab and return some of her valuables to you.”

“Don’t.” Mettaton growled, snapping his head up to look at Dogaressa and bearing his teeth, catching the dog monster by surprise at such a sharp turn around. The look in his eyes was so hateful, she thought she was being blamed for the Royal Scientist’s death. “Do _not_ touch her things, do you hear me? Don’t you dare.”

Dogaressa raised her free paw in surrender. “A-alright, alright. We’ll leave them be. But, sir, there was something else in the downstairs laboratory I really think you should know about. It-it would be unwise to not allow the Guard to investigate th-”

“What did I just say?” Mettaton pushed himself to his feet, storming closer up to the Guard to loom over her. “You will touch _nothing_ in that lab. Nothing. Once Dogamy gets back with the urn none of you are allowed in there unless I say otherwise. That is an order.” 

Confused, but not wanting to piss him off any further. Especially considering Mettaton seemed ready and willing to take his grief out on her...Dogaressa pulled another deep frown, but she nodded. “As you wish, your highness.”


	3. Chapter 3

The simplistic urn containing Alphys’s remains were given to Mettaton without question, to do her final rites as he saw fit. It would’ve been given to him anyway, king or not, he was her only relative anyone knew of. She never talked about any parents or siblings, or even extended family. It was...just him, really. And not a lot of people even knew she was his adoptive mother, just that they were close.

Mettaton had chosen not to wear his regalia for this trip, and had told - more ordered - the guards to stay at the castle. To leave him alone and let him do this on his own. With the white glass container tucked securely under his arm, Mettaton stared up at the large building he had called home for the past few years. Lowering his head with a heavy sigh, he punched in the code to the doorlock, the old mechanisms squeaking as they slid open.

The inside of the lab was pitch black, causing Mettaton to huff in exasperation. They couldn’t have left a light on for him, huh? No matter, Mettaton turned the his eye to full brights to give him a kind of flashlight, sliding his hand against the wall as he walked inside. First things first, find a light switch. The task didn’t take him long, he knew the place very well. Continuing to slide his hand along the wall until he felt the familiar shape of a switch, he flicked it on, pulling his hand away to watch the bright fluorescents spring to life. The lights revealed the lab hadn’t changed at all, he couldn’t decide if that made things more or less eerie. Paperwork scattered just the same as they were the last time he’d been in here, dirty dishes and empty containers of microwave food stacked up on desks and around computers. It was as if no time had passed at all...

Well, more like if no monster had passed at all.

Mettaton did have to give credit where credit was due, however; the Royal Guard had followed his instructions to not touch the place to a T. Most people would go against that kind of command and at least tidy up the place to “be nice :)”, even if it was never wanted nor asked for. If the lab had been spotless, he didn’t think he’d have the nerves to even come in here. It would’ve felt too wrong, it would’ve been too obvious something was off. 

Shifting the urn, Mettaton held it to his chest like he was cradling a child now that he was alone, with no one to give him pitied glances and empty words of reassurance that  _ it’ll be okay _ or  _ I’m sorry this happened. _ The hollow words of encouragement were useless to him, it was the standard greeting to someone who’d just suffered a loss. You said it because you were supposed to, not because you meant it. The note hadn’t been shown to anyone besides himself, in fact it was still tucked away in his pocket. But monsters loved gossip, there wasn’t much else to do down here, and word spread quickly. He was glad the dogs had enough respect to keep the exact details of that note to themselves.

“Oh...Alphie, Alphie, Alphie…” Mettaton mumbled, staring at the urn and leaning his back up against the wall. A miserable hiccuping noise escaped his chest, and he brought an arm up to rub against his face. 

No, no, he couldn’t just sit on the floor and cry, as much as he very much wanted to. He’d come here for a reason. He pushed himself off the wall, and wrapped his arms back around the urn, refusing to put it down as he walked further around the lab.

Now that he’d been in here for more than three minutes, he had decided the sameness was eerie after all. So unchanged the lab was he half expected the little lizard woman to come waddling out from her room upstairs with a half eaten ramen cup in her paw, surprised to see him home and not at the castle doing the whole ruling the Underground thing. A part of Mettaton hoped that would happen, and that this was all some horrible misunderstanding, it wasn’t actually Alphys who wrote that note, and the dust had been misidentified.

...He had been told one of the stages of grief was denial.

In Mettaton's mind, if he found the place exactly where she’d done it, perhaps it’d give him more closure than to just be told about it, and cease the doubt that sought to ruin him that he was being lied to. Dogaressa had mentioned something about the downstairs lab, so he figured that would be a good place to start. Searching around the floor he was currently on, he looked into every place he could think of for...well, he wasn’t sure what he was looking for. A noose? A weapon? Leftover dust? He figured he’d know it when he saw it. When he didn’t find anything, he had to wonder what the big deal they were making about the downstairs lab was. Scrunching up his face in a scowl, he marched to the stairs.

Fine! He’d check upstairs then.

Once up to the second floor, first he checked the little work area, slowing down at the table where his blueprints were spread, and some spare robot parts. He made a mental note of those, they were probably something he should bring back with him. But, there were no signs of a tragedy here, so he continued to the next places he could think of. Alphys’s bedroom, then the spare room that had been used for storage, and then even the room that held the serverboxes for the Undernet. His hand hovered over the glittery pink doorknob of his own bedroom, hesitating on going inside...

No, she wouldn’t have done it in there. 

He moved on.

It seemed no matter where he looked, there just wasn’t anything. Gnawing his lip as he did another round of the second floor, going back to circle the first floor, upstairs again, and back down just to triple check. Pastel pink steam started to billow out of his cheek vents as he gnawed his lip so hard his fang nearly tore a hole in the silicone, flicking his head back and forth frantically. 

“God fucking-” His fist clenched so hard his knuckles creaked in strain, “DAMMIT.” His fist collided against the wall, the metal letting out a loud rattle that muffled Mettaton’s heavy breathing as he braced his arm against it. 

“I-If those dogs,” a loud sniffle and a hiccup broke his angry tone of voice, knees wobbling as he started to slide down the wall. “T-touched...her…”

The urn rolled away a short distance as he pulled his legs to his chest, coiling his arms multiple times around his body, burying his face into his knees and finally breaking down into the sobbing he’d been holding back on this whole time.

“ _ Al-Alph-hhhys- _ ” he choked and whined, claws clicking out of his fingertips and digging into his sides as he squeezed himself tighter. “ _ I-I’m s-so sor-*hic*s-sorry-” _

Here, in the empty lab. Mettaton finally lost it, bawling so loud he was glad nobody was around to hear it. Uncharacteristic ugly noises escaping his chassis as he just - let himself cry, for once. He lifted his head out of his knees, snuffling and tilting his head back against the wall. Sending himself into a hiccuping fit as he tried to force himself back into calmness. Loosening his grip on himself, he tried to scrub some of the tears off his face with the heel of his palm, only serving to upset himself more when he saw the smeared makeup stains left behind on his glove. Making another pathetic whining noise, he was ready to curl back up and cry for about the next hundred years when he noticed something different about the room, and the shock of it made him cease crying for a second.

“Oh my god, you  _ didn’t _ …” Mettaton whispered, pushing himself off the ground and stumbling to the door he’d knocked open with his tantrum. The entrance to the one place he hadn’t checked. The gaping blackness of the elevator sat undisturbed, waiting for him.

Mettaton knew about the True Lab, and he knew what was down there. He’d never been allowed down there too often, and never on his own. Strictly off limits, Alphys said. Mettaton let her keep her privacy, and never pushed. That place kind of creeped him out anyways. When the dogs said the downstairs lab, he hadn’t even considered. Actually, he wondered how they even found the place, or why he didn’t make the connection in the first place when they talked of finding something.

Alphys really didn’t want to be found, huh?

Mettaton looked toward the urn that had been left lying on the floor, giving it a sad smile and shaking his head. “Tsk tsk Alphie, couldn’t have made things easy on me, now could you?”   


* * *

Well, the True Lab was definitely as dark and depressing as he'd remembered it. It spooked him out, to be quite honest, with all it’s decrepit machinery and abandoned projects. Screens on a motion sensor flickered to life as he passed by, but they were of no interest to him. He was a man on a mission, and didn’t have time to raid Alphys’s diary. The True Lab was expansive, and Mettaton had all the time in the world if he wanted to. But he already knew exactly where he was going to check first. Now, if he was going to find somewhere to hang himself, what kind of room would he do it in…? Mettaton marched down a short hall, and ripped aside a faded pink shower curtain.

And, his intuition paid off, there it was. Obvious signs that something terrible had happened here, the shower head bent considerably where something heavy had been tied to it, the dogs had probably gotten rid of the rope, there was an obvious space in the bottom of tub that was much cleaner than the rest of it’s grimy surroundings. 

Mettaton’s shoulders fell, “I...I guess they weren’t lying to me after all, were they, Alphie?”

Turning his head, he saw that folded up neatly and placed on a nearby sink was a wrinkled, stained labcoat. Mettaton let the curtain fall from his fingertips, once more obscuring the remnants of a horror show, moving to hover over the messy labcoat on the sink. God, she never did wash her clothes, did she? Sweat stains, food stains, the ends looked trampled from how much it dragged the ground behind her. It was just…

So her.

So much like her.

His fingers curled around the article of clothing reverently, bringing it to his chest as he sank to the ground again, bracing his back against the wall. Eyes falling shut and letting out a long sigh as he hugged it. It wasn’t much different than the one he had given to the Royal Guard to find her with, but, she’d died in this one. And that’s what made it uh...honestly? More morbid. Mettaton would’ve probably been better off digging out one from her drawers upstairs, a cleaner, not died in one, for a keepsake. But he didn’t want one of those ones, he wanted this one.

He balled his fists up in it, and brought it up to his face, nuzzling into it and sighing again. Somehow, he didn’t feel like crying. Somehow he was calmer now than he had been upstairs, having a meltdown on the floor because he couldn’t find what he wanted to. Perhaps having something to cling to that wasn’t just a jar of dust was more cathartic.

Speaking of which, he still needed to spread that...He’d…

Mettaton lowered himself more onto the floor, laying on his side, cuddling the lab coat and pressing his cheek against it.

..He’d get to it…

Mettaton laid there for, oh...well, he wasn’t really keeping track of the time. He’d turned off his chronometer, his head was empty, and he’d disabled his communication HUD before leaving the castle, not wanting to be bothered. Leaving him in calm silence, the only noise being the ambient hum of machinery and the quiet whirring of his internals. Hey, would you look at that! Laying on the ground and feeling like garbage, god, how long had it been since he’d done that? Man, he should probably visit Napstablook sometime, now with the whole king thing.

...He’d...

...Get to it...

Mettaton closed his eyes, shifting a little to get more comfortable, he probably would’ve fallen asleep here. Actually, that didn’t sound like a bad idea, didn’t seem bad at all until he felt a shift in the room. Quiet, odd footsteps approaching him, a large shadow falling over his body. Mettaton opened his good eye again, rolling it up to see a giant eye staring back at him and making the quiet coos of a dove. Beak clicking open and shut as the skinny bird amalgamate twisted it’s odd, flat head to and fro to examine him. Once more that guttural coo escaping its mouth. It seemed like it was...concerned.

Mettaton pushed himself back into a sitting position, the Reaper Bird backing up, shuffling its feet together and arching it’s back to give him space. Tilting its head this way and that, it’s long neck moved to rest it’s forehead under the robot’s chin, repeating it’s cooing. Ah, it was trying to comfort him.  Mettaton couldn’t help but smile some, it was such a sweet gesture he didn’t care at all about the white goop drooling onto his lap. 

“Thank you, love. I’m - I’ll be fine.” Mettaton mumbled, pressing a quick kiss to the bird-like amalgamate’s head as it continued its odd embrace. 

The Reaper Bird chirred, beak clicking at a rapid pace to enunciate the noise, pulling it's head away completely for a moment. It opened it's jaws to let garbled mess of words tumbling out of it as it gave Mettaton an attempted gentle glance, eye squinting sideways. Mettaton just smiled and nodded, pretending he understood what any of them were saying. It’s mouth closed again, and it stood up, pacing around the robot for a moment before settling down at his side. Legs folding under it, three times before it could sit like a proper bird in its nest. One of it’s featherless wings opening up and folding over the shoulder of the superstar turned king, tucking him against his skinny chest.

Seems he wasn't the only one mourning.

* * *

As much as Mettaton could’ve stayed down there forever, a king has his duties. And a king can’t sit in the dark with his weird friends in his mom’s basement for all eternity. 

Mettaton unscrewed the lid of the urn, and looked at the shelf in front of him.

“Dear, I wish you had something more poetic as a favorite object than...anime toys….” he said with a small chuckle, grabbing a small handful of dust and spreading it evenly amongst the shelves of brightly colored figurines. “It’s just so cheesy and dorky.”

He paused as he reached for another handful.

“...I guess it is pretty fitting then, hm?”

He paused as he got to the top shelf, picking up one of the figurines and turning it over in his hand. Mettaton recognized the cat-eared pink girl, he recalled this character being Alphys’s favorite. Mettaton brushed his thumb across it, pondering for a moment. 

She wouldn’t miss one, would she?

Mettaton put the figure aside in the box of stuff he was bringing back to the castle, spreading the remaining dust across the top shelf. He screwed the lid back on the now empty urn, and placed it on the work desk near by. Mettaton had just fished a cardboard box from under a computer, formerly filled with some paperwork he didn’t think would be too important in the afterlife. Aside from that little keepsake, he’d grabbed his blueprints, and a majority of the spare parts to his body. Even the eye that was meant to go on the other half of his face, before they’d figured out injuries carry over into corporeality, and that he’d be half-blind forever due to whatever caused a ghost to lose an eye. Maybe it’d come in handy one day, who knows? As for the lab coat from below, he’d decided to loop it loosely around his shoulders, keeping it close for now.

Hmm..what hadn’t he checked? Mettaton glanced down the hall, pressing his fist to his lips. The bright pink door among the monochrome clean colors of the hall beckoned to him. He had decided to himself he wanted to leave his old room as it was, just in case he ever wanted to come back here for some reason. Perhaps the castle bed didn’t feel right, or maybe he just wanted to sleep somewhere quiet and where nobody could find him until he wanted to be found. Or maybe if he wanted to pretend things were fine, that Alphys was stuck in her bedroom on a binge of a new disc set she’d found in Waterfall. And that Asgore was still the king, and he had to be on set in the morning. 

But, it probably wouldn’t hurt to do a quick once over to make absolute sure there was nothing he wanted to bring back to the castle. Leaving the box behind, Mettaton made his way down the hallway, and turned the glittery doorknob.

His bedroom felt darker than it was supposed to be, but that could just be due to the star shaped fairy lights strung around his bed being mostly burnt out. Mettaton felt around for the switch, and the pink fluffy room was filled with brightness. The room looked as if it should belong to a spoiled brat of a little girl, with all the pink and frills and bed full of stuffies. But, little girls didn’t typically have a gilded liquor cabinet in the corner and a vanity desk where pink and black paint were part of its arsenal.

Mettaton took a few steps into the room, placing his hands on his hips as he scanned it, and made a small list in his head. There was plenty of alcohol back in the castle, makeup was easy to replace, he kind of wanted to keep his plushies here. He felt like he’d be stripping more life than had already been taken if he brought them back. His eyes landed on a shelf, filled with more stuffed toys; one in particular stood out to him, not just because it wasn’t pink. 

He smiled to himself and stepped closer to it, picking up the large plush about the size of a toddler and examining it. This one was special, he remembered. A yellow dinosaur with a blue bow around its neck. Mettaton had found it while helping Alphys dig for spare parts that may have fallen from the Surface. He’d picked it up and laughed at how much it looked like Alphys, showing it off to her so she could she. Ended up taking it home and fixing it up, the bow around it’s neck being Mettaton’s enhancement. It was mostly to tease her, as he’d always chattered about how stunning blue would look on her. Alphys would always retort asking who she would be wearing it for, and Mettaton would coo back about Undyne. 

_ “My, darling! I said blue, not beet red!”  _

Undyne...she was gone too, huh?

Mettaton’s small grin fell, it probably wasn’t his place to do the last rites for her as well, if her dust was recovered. He hadn’t known her as well as say, Papyrus...

Was he going to tell Papyrus? Sans was so insistent on telling him Undyne was “on vacation”, as if he’d known all along. Honestly Mettaton found it a bit insulting that Sans coddled a grown adult like that but - hey, you know what? Mettaton would let someone else deal with that hurdle. Because Undyne wasn’t his like Alphys had been his. Papyrus would find out in his own time, and he’d cope with it in his own ways.

Mettaton looked back down at the fluffed and primmed little Alphys copy, it’s mismatched button eyes staring back at him. He sat down on the bed, placing the toy on his lap. The labcoat slid off his arms, and he wrapped it around the toy, pulling it’s little arms through the sleeves and doing up its buttons. 

“There we go,” Mettaton whispered, pulling his hands away and twisting them as if to present himself with his minimal handiwork. “Good as new~”

* * *

Mettaton wasn’t bothered by any of the guards upon arriving back at the castle, bringing his box of belongings up to the royal chambers. The parts and blueprints he’d deliver to Sans when he felt like it, the little catgirl figurine was placed up on his shelf, and the dinosaur plush was tucked into bed lovingly. Mettaton was about to leave the room, but he paused, looking back at it…

And picked it back up, squeezing it to his chest and nuzzling his lips against it’s soft head. A part of him wanted to bring it back to the throne room, as something to sit with him on the throne. He had wanted Alphys to help him rule, after all. But..it probably wouldn’t be too good for his royal ratings to see the new king, one monsterkind was still forming an opinion on, coddling a stuffed toy on the throne. Mettaton pressed a parting kiss to the top of it’s head as he pulled away, putting it back up under the covers. Fixing the blankets around it’s little neck so it looked comfortable.

For real this time, Mettaton opened the doors to his bedroom, snatching the sleeve of the guard stationed in the hallway and dragging him into the room. Mettaton didn’t let go of the Guard’s robe, keeping his eyes toward the floor for a moment.

“Dogamy, hun...you...saw what was down there, didn’t you?”

The dog monster didn’t seem to follow, knitting his eyebrows in confusion. Mettaton didn’t feel the need to elaborate. He didn't want to say what he was going to, but...it was the kindest thing to be done, no matter how wrong it felt.

“Put them out of their misery.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WHEEZE oh god sorry this took me so long to finish, I was stuck on this chapter for a while.  
> Updates may or may not be kind of slow from here on out, I'm kind of stuck on the middle parts of this fic so I've been suggested to work backwards. But! I do plan to finish this fic! I'm not abandoning it! So if I go MIA for a while don't lose hope with me updating this.
> 
> Anyway! There's a bit of a timeskip here with an event that's insinuated pretty well in this chapter, just cause I didn't really feel like writing a whole chapter dedicated to it. But! Yea! Chapter!

“Holy dustbunnies, Batman!” Sans whistled, leaning back in his chair and mocking coughing. Pink glitter and dust swirling through the air as he tried to clear it with a wave of his hand, “How long it been since you last got a tune up? Suprised ya’ ain’t got cobwebs and a cartoon spider in there.”

The robot laid out on the workbench shrugged, kicking one leg over the other and folding his hands behind his head, briefly looking down at his opened up chestplate, the catalyst of the mess Sans was currently trying to deal with. He seemed very unconcerned with the matter, which seemed a bit out of character. Maybe he didn’t care as much about the appearance of his innards as he did the appearance of his face.  
  
“Ohh, not sure, really. Was before I took the crown, definitely.”

Finally deciding his skeletal hand wasn’t going to do much when faced with a dust cloud, Sans had resorted to rolling his sleeve down past his mitts and batting it through the air until he could - hypothetically - breathe again. Relaxing back into his rolling chair, Sans raised a brow towards Mettaton’s direction. “An’...how long’s that been? Bout 4 months, give or take, yea?”

Mettaton tapped his chin theatrically, rolling his gaze towards the roof and giving an audible hum just to add to the affect. “Suppose so. My, my, has it really been that long? How time flies.”

“Boy, don’t I feel that sometimes.” Sans chattered, making conversation as he scooted his chair backwards to dig through a cardboard box on the ground. “One moment yer layin’ down for a post afternoon snack nap, next thing you know it, it’s next Tuesday. Ain’t it crazy?”

Not amused, Mettaton didn’t even crack a smile. “I believe that’s called a coma, Sansy.”

“Hey! No need t’ get all technical on me. Already got enough technicalities I gotta bother with right now.” Sans paused in his rummaging to lean his arm against the back of his chair, looking towards Mettaton, waiting for the reaction he oh so craved. Eyebrows waggling in an “eh? eh?” motion. 

Either Mettaton once more, wasn’t amused in the slightest, or the pun flew completely over his head. Because he regarded Sans with about as much emotion as the animatronic dolls he was modeled after. Which was to say; none. 

Letting out a sigh, Sans returned to his rummaging. Not finding what he needed in the first box, he grunted as he had to hunch over to lift another box of miscellaneous somethings onto the table. Rolling his sleeves up once again and shoving his arm, up to the elbow, into the clutter. Suddenly Papyrus’s rants about keeping his tools in designated places was really starting to make sense to him...But that took effort, Sans reasoned to himself. And he didn’t want to, he also gave himself to back up his claims. So he’d stick with his broken system of trying to remember where he put things every time he needed them. Besides, he only had so many boxes down here, there wasn’t a lot of places for things to hide.

“I gotta say though, kinky boots-” _Ah-ha!_ Sans pulled away from the box triumphantly, gripping a can of compressed air in his hand. See! He knew it’d pop up eventually! “Puttin’ off tune ups till you get sick? On stage no less? Can’t say I can exactly judge, but ain’t a good look.”

The can made it’s home on the workbench not occupied by sparkly robot, next to a Phillips screwdriver and some laid out blueprints. While Mettaton squinted at Sans for the nickname, he decided to let it slide. Rolling over onto his belly to get a better look at what Sans was doing, he perched his chin in his hand and folded his arm under his still opened chest. Feet were swung up over his back and kicked idly in the air. 

“Well it wasn’t by choice, hun. Just slipped my mind, is all. I’m a very busy man, in case you haven’t noticed. I have something called the entire Underground to rule~?” 

Sans scoffed, shaking his head a bit as he leaned back in his chair to unwrap the plastic from the can. He briefly looked up towards where the pulled apart robot was posing with his guts showing. 

_‘Well that’s someone’s kink…’_ Sans thought to himself, but choose not to say it aloud. Knowing Mettaton well enough if he said anything along those lines he’d possibly trigger some spiel about how one time Mettaton slept with this guy who was really into pulling wires out of sockets and my wasn’t his body a dream come true for that. 

Still refusing to get out of his chair, Sans wheeled himself over to the work bench and put his hand on Mettaton’s shoulder. Forcing him back into a lying position on his back.

“Stay down, can’t have ya’ jostling your innards.”

Mettaton pouted like a scolded child, and Sans ignored it as he started working on putting that compressed air to use on the inside of his chest. 

“Well I’ll say this, I ain’t gonna force you to do check-ups if you don’t want it, I ain’t your mama. But I am gonna recommend it.” 

Talking was replaced by the sound of blowing air, the quiet hum of machinery, and the _tik-tik-tik_ of Mettaton’s artificial heartbeat. Sans didn’t give much thought to the sudden quiet, maybe the cleaning felt good to Mettaton. Maybe he was getting ready to go into shut down mode for the actual repairs, he didn’t know.

After a few minutes, Sans had to pull away and set the can aside. Wanting to find a rag to clean the dust that had been swept into manageable little piles. A glance was cast in the direction of Mettaton’s face as the dusting was finished up. Mettaton’s over expressive eye dulled to a darker shade of pink, avoiding eye contact with the skeleton. He was...upset? And Sans was a bit bewildered. Why the hell was he upset? He was happy and chatty not ten minutes before, the cleaning job set aside for a minute as Sans searched for some elephant in the room he wasn’t getting.

Was it something he said? He was just making small talk, trying to help the guy. Give some rare useful advice, oh don’t tell him the egomaniac was so sensitive he was going to get upset over being criticized on poor health practices-

“Ah!” Sans’s eyelights blinked brighter for only a second, he had found that elephant. “....ah,”

Looking away from the robot superstar, Sans scratched the back of his skull. “Sorry, kid. I didn’t uh, mean it like that. Was just a poor choice a’words.”

“Mm.” Mettaton’s sullen expression didn’t leave, turning his head to study a very interesting speck of peeled paint on the wall. 

Ah, jeez…

“She was uh, she was my friend too, yanno…” Was this comforting? Was this how you comforted someone? “Didn’t get to really, talk to her a lot before uh...yanno. Kinda lost contact, was a friend of my d-”

“Change the subject.” Mettaton snapped, “Don’t you have a check up to be attending to? Since you’re so insistent on them.”

Sans blinked, not expecting to be yelled at. “Right, my bad.” 

An awkward silence fell over the room, suddenly the noises of machine at work and the clicking of a faux heart weren’t comforting sounds at all. Sans turned his attention back towards the little list written out on the corner of the blueprints. Titled “ _maintenance prep_ ”.

 _“2) After cleaning, shut down and remove core. STORE IN SAFE, COMFORTABLE PLACE_.”

The last part of the instructions were heavily emphasized. Written in huge text compared to the rest of the list, in all caps, and underlined three times. _Damn,_ Sans thought, _That core must be pretty darn important._

Sans had an inkling as to why, but...it wasn’t really his business, now was it? Sans had his own secrets, it wasn’t much his place to press into Mettaton’s. Besides, didn’t really care much, he was just the guy’s door guard and occasional mechanic.

The skeleton leaned his elbows against the table, eyes scanning the blueprints for a designation to an off switch. He figured Mettaton wouldn’t appreciate being frisked to find the thing. Or hey, maybe he would! If Sans was a handsome bachelor, which he wasn’t. Sans internally laughed at thinking of himself like that even jokingly. He tapped a picture on the blueprint to lock it into his mind, and pushed himself away from the desk.

“Allright-” Sans scooted his chair up to Mettaton’s side once more, a hand going under his neck to part his hair and feel up for the off switch, “Gonna shut ya’ off now, nighty night princess.”

His permagrin smirked a little wider at his own snide remark, but alas, his comedic genius was once more unappreciated. As in return he only received an icy pink glare.

“Tough crowd tonight,” Sans shrugged, and with that the switch was flicked into the off position. Mettaton’s eye blacked out, and a click indicated the lock on his core container had undone itself.

“Well that’s a nifty little feature,” Sans said to himself as he pulled the cover open the rest of the way, clear (and yes, glittery) coolant spilling out of the tank and onto the table. In hindsight, he probably should’ve been expecting that. Whatever, he’d grab a towel from upstairs later.

Mettaton’s core shone as vibrant as a pink as it had before he was turned off, and it looked purple as it was wrapped up cozy in blue magic and lifted into the air. Comfortable place...hm...Sans looked around his small workroom for anything that might be considered “comfortable”. Would the Primadonna really notice if he just, set it on a table or something? I mean, come on, it’s not like he’d ever find out. He was dead asleep right n-

“SANS!”

Said skeleton jumped with a small gasp, the blue encasing Mettaton’s core flickering out as he lost concentration. Sans was quick to snatch it out of the air as it began to fall, wheezing a sigh of relief when it didn’t smash to the floor. Goddamn, as if he needed accidental regicide on his plate. Welp, he’d take that as a sign from God, and decided to set the heart down next to the blueprints.

“Pap,” Sans laughed, turning to face the newcomer he’d been so loudly interuppted by. “Ya gotta warn me.”

“I did warn you! I called you! Ten times, in fact!”

Sans blinked at that, looking over to where his cellphone sat. He reached out to scoop it up, and tapped his thumb against the screen to turn it on.

_‘10 missed calls from ‘bro’.’_

“...Huh.” Sans put it back down, not sure how he didn’t hear that go off. “Eh, sorry, Papy. But, I mean, can ya’ blame me? After all-” He shrugged and winked one of his eyelights. “Ain’t like I got ears.”

Papyrus narrowed his eyes and set his jaw, that one wasn’t even a pun. Or very funny, it was really just a statement of fact more than anything. He expected better. But, in lieu of criticizing Sans’s poor joke, Papyrus instead marched past him and placed his hands on the occupied workbench. Leaning over Mettaton’s prone body and scrutinizing the exposed wiring. Sans let him get an eyeful, he trusted Papyrus. Tech-savvy his little brother may not be, smart enough to not mess with complex electronics he was.

“See somethin’ that interests ya’?” Sans asked, trying to fill the silence with ambient conversation as he scanned the blueprints once again to figure out where he should start on this. He figured Mettaton’s “stomach” tank would make the most logical sense, what with the reason of him being in here in the first place. Honestly, Sans found it kind of amusing Mettaton had such a thing in the first place. Monster food was magic, after all. The only reason for him having to have such an organ was if Alphys had predicted he would be addicted to eating things you weren’t supposed to.

Once he had a grasp on what he was doing, Sans turned back to his workbench. Leaning his cheek into his palm as he waited for his brother to finish up looking at whatever it was he was examining so closely. 

Finally, Papyrus seemed to have had his fill, backing up from the bench and placing his hands on his hips. More extended silence followed until Papyrus finally concluded his response, “I didn’t realize robots could throw up, is all.”

“Don’ think he did either, to be honest with’cha.” Sans replied, moving his chair back up once Papyrus had moved. Like one might gut a deer, Sans wiggled his fingers under the topmost circuitry to shove his hand up into Mettaton’s chest cavity, feeling around for the organ in question. “Yanno, you’d think he’d gotten enough hangovers in his life. I’ve seen ‘im chug down vodka like a guy who hasn’ seen water in a month-”

He cut himself off as he felt the piece he had been searching for, grunting as he had to fumble around a bit more to locate the nut locking it into place. Now that he thought about it, it probably would’ve been much easier to dissect him from the top to get this. _Well, too late now,_ he thought as he pulled back with the piece in hand. It looked to be a repurposed gas tank, painted pink (because of course), and covered in a glittery pastel pink goo that also served to make a new stain on his shirt that had been white many moons ago.

He put the tank down on the table, and wiped the remainder of the fluids off on his shirt. Ah well, not like this thing wasn’t stained to hell and back anyway.

“Is...that his-?” 

“Oil, or some sorta coolant.” Sans answered Papyrus’s question before he finished.

Well that put Papyrus’s concerns to rest, here he had been thinking it was robot blood, and Sans had cut some sort of artery. “Oil? That looks nothing like oil."

“That’s cause it ain’t.” Sans finally had gotten his hand clean, “Least it ain’t _oil_ oil. Some kinda glitter goop alternative. I gotta say, that’s some damn hard dedication to an aesthetic.”

Unfortunately, Mettaton wouldn’t be too happy to learn Sans didn’t have designer glitter oil on hand. He’d have to settle for the icky black stuff like a regular ol’ superstar robot. How would he cope? The tragedy.

And now that screwdriver came in handy, Sans undoing the screws holding the two halves of the tank together as he opened it up. This time his disgust was very much real as he recoiled at the strong stench that wafted out of it. The very, very, _very_ strong scent of unprocessed alcohol mixed with the sour smell of glue...somehow he preferred the glittery dustbunnies. The tank was filled up with what looked like a concoction of one-half parts glitter glue, and one-half parts 80% proof vodka. No wonder he got sick, Sans was feeling a little ill himself just looking at it. This time Sans’s coughing was for real as he dumped the mixed drink from Lisa Frank hell into a trashcan, slamming the lid shut to block out the smell and not wasting any time getting to work scrubbing it out more thoroughly.

“Well, guess my hangover theory was right.” Sans continued to cough as he rubbed a rag covered in cleaner on the insides of the tank to make sure all the barely processed glue-ka was gone. He set both halves, upturned, aside to dry out, and kicked the dirty rag to the floor for it to be lost and forgotten about until he needed it later.

Somewhere during this time, Papyrus had taken a seat in a spare chair after moving one of Sans’s many boxes off of it and onto the ground. But not before giving it a judgmental look, chairs weren’t exactly meant for box storage after all. He pushed his hands into his knees, watching Sans work with curiosity. If not for the pink glitter staining his clothes instead of the trademark black-brown oil, he almost fit the picture perfect stereotype of a mechanic at work.

“That’s strange…” Papyrus muttered offhandedly, more to himself than anything.

While the tank was drying, Sans double checked some other vitals. First the batteries, make sure they weren’t cracked or leaking. Good news, they weren’t. Then the wires hooking them in, he noticed one was slightly frayed. Shoot, he knew he had a roll of electrical tape around here...somewhere.

“What’s strange, Pap? Can ya’ hand me that box?” Sans rolled back towards where he had found the compressed air, maybe he’d seen it in there earlier? Damnit, he couldn’t remember now.

Papyrus obliged, taking the box he had just moved and gently setting it down within Sans’s reach. “The fact Mettaton had a hangover is strange. I haven’t seen him drink all that much!”

Mumbling a quick thanks, Sans searched through the new box. “Mmhm, well, ya’ ain’t with him 24/7, Papy. You don’t know what he gets up to in his free time, eh?” A soft snort shook Sans’s shoulders, and he shook his head a little. “Yanno, probably for the best ya’ don’t. Guy gets up to some weird things.”

Papyrus was compelled to protest in Mettaton’s defense. Surely they couldn’t be that bad! Sans had his fair share of odd habits, too! For example - the habit of grumbling and swearing to himself over lost items instead of just keeping things in designated spaces as Papyrus had suggested for the umpteenth time by now. Instead of protesting, though, Papyrus’s eyes glanced towards a filing cabinet stacked in the corner of the room, probably filled with anything but important documents. Taking a step away from the workbench, he plucked a roll of black tape off the top of it, presenting it to Sans wordlessly.

“Huh- oh! Ayyy! Thanks, Pap!” Sans dropped the box he was holding with a great clatter, snatching up the offered tape roll before going back to hover over Mettaton’s body. He ripped a chunk off with his teeth and got to work wrapping up that frayed wire.

“Not a problem. You know, Sans, now that I think about it! I do remember a conversation I had with Mettaton the other day.” Papyrus continued as if the conversation hadn’t been cut off at all. He sat back down in the chair to watch his brother work. It was quite fascinating to him!

“Oh yea? Somethin’ interesting?” There we go, that should prevent Mettaton from losing charge faster than he already did. What next? Hmm...maybe cleaning out his mouth would be the smart decision. Sans wouldn’t be surprised if that gunk in his tank that got spit back up was corrosive somehow. He put his thumb on the robot’s chin, propping his mouth open and glancing inside...

...He decided to just mention to Mettaton he should brush his fangs when he woke up. He really didn’t want to clean glitter vomit off of vampire robot teeth. Mettaton was a fully grown robot man, he could clean himself. Sans was a mechanic, not a babysitter.

“Well, I probably would’ve been much more enthralled with the conversation if I could contribute more. It was about alcohol, which I don’t know much about. But you mentioning it reminded me of it!” Papyrus, chipper as ever, continued to explain.

Sans paused for a second, moving his hand away and letting Mettaton’s mouth shut on it’s own again. A nagging concern began to brew at the back of his mind, and he nervously rapped his fingers against Mettaton’s glass belly. “Oh...really, huh? He uh-” Sans coughed, noticing his own nervous tick and moving his hand into his pocket instead. “Ain’t been- pressuring ya’ into that stuff, has he?”

The scrape of bone against bone was audible as Papyrus set his jaw again, teeth grinding together loudly. “Sans! You underestimate my ability to resist peer pressure! And, furthermore, it’s very rude to insinuate Mettaton is that type of person! Shame on you!”

Sans released the tension in his frame with a mock sigh, pressing a hand against his forehead. “Right- right. I just...don’t want ya’ goin near that stuff, alrigh’? Stuff’s poison.”

“So you’ve said many times, Sans.” As exasperated as Papyrus felt after being told that for, exactly, and yes he’d counted, the three-hundreth and fourty-seventh time; he let his tone betray his emotions and remain upbeat. “Now, do you want to hear about my conversation with Mettaton or not?”

“Sure, sure.” Sans muttered, only seeming half interested. But really only because he was back to being focused. He debated plugging Mettaton into a laptop and running a diagnostic check as he screwed the tank back together. But...then he’d have to find his laptop, and he’d already found the root of the sickness problem anyway. Plus he hadn’t been given a copy of Mettaton’s internal programming, and he wasn’t entirely sure if he could get a fully-sentient, highly-advanced robot a virus check with McAfee. It just seemed like a hassle of an extra step.

“Well, he was talking about wine! And he did mention alcohol being one of his favorite flavors - but not wine.” Papyrus paused briefly, “So, I guess he does drink that much! He must if it’s his favorite!”

Oh, was that all? Sans had to shake his head, would’ve smiled to himself if not for - uh, well, you know. That’s what you get for being paranoid, Sans. “Tha’s true, Pap. Tha’s true.”

“Though, I have been trying to talk to Mettaton about healthier habits. He doesn’t seem to take care of himself very well!” Papyrus mused aloud, rubbing his hand against his chin, “Perhaps I can talk to him about it! That way he doesn’t get sick again?”

 _Mettaton? Being irresponsible with his health? Who’d’a thunk!_ Of course Sans didn’t voice that aloud, that kind of comment would’ve crushed Papyrus’s feelings. Instead, his chair squeaked as he leaned back in it, one elbow resting against the armrest as he looked in Papyrus’s direction. “Listen, Pap. Word’a wisdom from your big bro. Y’ can’t help someone who don’t wanna be helped. And Mettaton? He don’t want no help.” A snort, “You’d be better off tryin’ to teach a cat to swim.”

“I’ve found some cats to be very good at swimming!”

“Was a joke, Papy.” Jeez, he was not having a good day in the jokes department. What was that? The third or forth one that had fallen flat?

“Even so! If cats can swim, then Mettaton can learn healthier habits! It’s important! Especially for someone as important as him, he has to set an example for the rest of the Underground now!” Papyrus refused to give up on Mettaton so easily. The thought of dropping it before he even started went against near everything he believed in.

A scoff, and Sans didn’t reply further than that. Papyrus’s shoulders fell, the dismissal upsetting him but...he kept that to himself. Very rarely could he get Sans to see his point of view. He supposed now wouldn’t be much different.

With the tank cleaned out and put back in place, vitals double checked to make sure it wouldn’t fritz out anytime soon, and everything put back where it was supposed to go, Sans was ready to call a wrap on Mettaton’s impromptu medical visit. Blue magic encased the pink heart on the table again, and it was pressed back into its home within Mettaton’s abdomen, automatic locks trapping it in place. The robot’s pink iris whirled like a loading symbol as his systems rebooted, core container flooding with fresh coolant. A soft and cheerful chime sounded from his chest speaker, indicating it was safe to turn him back on now. Once more Sans had to admire the clever system of operations put into place. He wondered if Mettaton truly appreciated the amount of work put into his body...or if he didn’t really appreciate much outside of the spotlight and glitter.

Life returned to Mettaton’s features, and he blinked. Wasting no time in sitting up straight and scrutinizing his own front. He frowned at the fact his leggings were wet from Sans failing to mop up the spilled coolant, but upon brushing his pristine white gloves against his front, he found nothing else out of place.

“Gooood morning, sunshine!” Sans hummed, packing his supplies back up. After some serious internal fighting, he had decided to at least sort his “Mettaton essentials” into their own container. “Ya’ sleep well?”

“As well as one put into forced stasis can,” Mettaton replied, double and triple checking his gloves just to absolutely make sure there was nothing amiss. Satisfied to find he was just as spotless as when he went under, he looked up from himself, blinking wide when he noticed he had - actually pleasant - company. “Oh! Papy darling! How long have you been here, hun?”

“Whole time.” Sans responded before Papyrus could, folding up the blueprints very, very neatly. And then stuffing the carefully folded up papers haphazardly into the filing cabinet. Under “d” for “don’t care to sort this properly right now”.

“Oh, well then!” Mettaton swung his legs over the edge of the workbench, perching his hands on either side of himself and giving Papyrus a little grin. “I don’t mind! My body is quite the work of art, inside and out. Who am I to stop someone wanting to admire it~?”

“S’ more like gawkin’ at a mess than admiring an art piece.” Sans butted in once more.

“Sans, dear love, if you haven’t noticed-” Mettaton set his gaze in Sans’s direction with a cold glare. “I’m not talking to you.”

“Well,” Papyrus finally spoke up, “I, on the other hand, agree! It is really interesting to look at! I’m very glad to see you awake and feeling okay! You scared me, and everyone else, I’m sure!”

“Not me-”

“Still not talking to you, Sansy.” Mettaton snapped, not even bothering to look in his direction this time. Instead he cooed at Papyrus like one might a cute animal, endeared by his concern. “Aww~! How sweet of you! My, goodness gracious I probably did give everyone quite the scare-” He pouted painted lips, and pressed fingers against his chin. “Hmm, I should rectify that. If my dear doctor has given me a clean bill of health~?”

“Clean as it’ll ever be. Free to go, hot shot.” Sans waved his hand in a vague shooing gesture. “Just don’t be eatin’ any glitter-coated broken glass anytime soon.”

The jab at his eh, “unique”, eating habits went ignored as Mettaton clapped his hands together. “Wonderful!”

He unplugged the charging cable from his neck and rolled it up in a ball, stuffing it in a compartment in his hip. “Well, ciao ciao, lovelies~! See at least one of you back at the castle later. I have to schedule a news shoot ASAP.”

Papyrus waved enthusiastically after Mettaton as he began to climb the stairs. THe motion going unnoticed and unreciprocated as the robot’s attention was quickly consumed with his HUD, catching up on missed notifications and texting his camera crew to get ready for an “emergency” broadcast.

“Oh, wait! One more thing-” Sans called, making Mettaton pause and turn around. Something bonked off his forehead, and he grunted, quick to grab whatever had been thrown at him before it fell to the ground. “Brush your teeth, breath stinks like sugar-coated garbage.”  
  
Mettaton gave a disapproving frown to the steel wool brush in his hand.


	5. Chapter 5

“-and! I’m now happy to report! I’m in tiptop condition!”

It was funny how the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. The “emergency” news broadcast was filmed in a red suit and yellow tie, the only addition to his attire being the little gold tiara that contrasted nicely against black hair. It wasn’t the real crown, goodness no! That one didn’t match the outfit. The tiara was only there to serve as a not-so-subtle reminder, and as a meaningful accessory. That despite the fact he was stationed at a familiar desk, in a familiar outfit and a familiar face. Same MTT-time, same MTT-channel. Things were in fact different.   


“So! Again, I do deeply apologize for my little...hiccup.” A mock of being bashful, pretty giggle rising from his throat as he covered his mouth and averted his eye from the camera. “But! With that pesky little bug squashed, I’m more than happy to continue the forum! I’m sure I didn’t even begin to sate your curiosities.”

There was another thing that hadn’t changed one bit, no matter how short of notice, how inconvenient of time. If Mettaton said he was hosting a liveshow, you went to Mettaton’s liveshow. Monsters rushed to fill seats, and there was never an empty chair. Perhaps it was the excitement of seeing Mettaton in person, maybe it was because everyone had questions of the new king. Realistically, it was probably a healthy mix of both. Dozens of eyes trained on Mettaton in anticipation as he rose from his desk chair. Pausing momentarily as a stagehand rushed out from backstage to fasten his fur-lined cloak around his shoulders. They had to stretch to reach, Mettaton being a fair bit taller than them. It didn’t help Mettaton made no efforts to help. Once they were done, he haphazardly flopped against the hot pink chaise sat on the opposite end of the stage. One leg slung over the other, and he pressed his cheek into his palm.

“So, ask away, darlings! Please line up at the microphone - oh! Oh goodness! One at a time loves, one at a time! Please remember to stay behind the black line until called-” He watched with small amusement as the audience scrambled to leave their seats. Monsters pushing and shoving as they fought to get to a better place in line. Guards having to step in to settle these small scuffles without further escalation. Momentarily, Mettaton thought maybe he should’ve called by raised hand. But - he had been advised that the purpose of a public forum was to well, be public. Meaning everyone who had a question should get a chance to.  His favorite stagehand, a Cocker Spaniel monster, sat in the front row next to the microphone stand. Once the line had settled some, she gave the go-ahead for the first monster to come up past the line taped to the floor. The first monster was a water elemental in rubber rain boots, her “hair” tied back into a ponytail. Her eyes squinted in what Mettaton assumed to be her way of smiling as she trotted up to the microphone. Hands folded behind her back, clearly making an effort not to get the electronics wet.

“Hey! So, uh, this is a question that’s been buggin’ me for a while actually.” The girl scratched at her cheek. Her skin denting slightly like gelatin. “Uhm, so you know Muffet, right? Spider lady, hangs out in the CORE? She works near your resort, and uh..other places.”

Ah...Muffet. Mettaton knew the spider woman very well, unfortunately. He wasn’t the fondest of her. What had started as a simple business rivalry had grown more personal when she became sweet on his cousin. And then, ohoho, and  _ then _ his hatred grew even more profound when she actually acted on her feelings. Because how dare she! Of course, poor Muffet didn’t know what kind of family ties she was getting into when she started seeing Mads, and it’s not as if that was an easily broached topic, and- and...Actually, you know, this was family drama. Family drama he shouldn’t be pondering over on live television and allowing to influence his decisions as a ruler. As a bonus, it probably wouldn’t look good to show personal disdain for one of his subjects. Especially considering a part of Asgore’s charm had been that he was friends with just about everyone. So...he just nodded along to the water girl’s question.

“Oh, well aware! Who doesn’t know her? It’s not as if she makes herself hard to find, after all. Either way, go on.” He twirled his hand in a circle to further prompt her.

The water girl’s eyes lit up pale yellow in delight, “Hey, great! Saves me a lil time. So, anyways, uh - what’s like...up with her?” Probably realizing how vague that sounded, she shook her head. Small water droplets flicking off her body from the movement and getting some of the people around her caught in the splash zone. “Ah, sorry, lemme explain. So like, we do have some sort of food quality laws down here, don’t we? So how come her bakery operation is like...exempt? Doesn’t she like, have bugs in her food? That doesn’t really sound legal.”

Mettaton’s pupil shifted into a star, face lighting up in delight. And, this time he didn’t have to force the grin spreading across his face. Because he was about to do the most petty thing in his entire career, and he was absolutely living for it.

“Oh my, darling,” Mettaton gasped, cupping hands around his face, mouth dropped into an O, really hamming it up. “You’re absoLUTELY right! That’s terrible! Just dreadful! Bound to make someone sick! Oh goodness gracious, what if it has already?” The shocked expression shifted to a more thoughtful one, tapping his fingers against his lips and humming, “My, my, I’m not sure how Asgore could’ve overlooked it this long. My goodness, bless him, but he always was a soft heart-” Mettaton didn’t even have to look at the crowd to know he was being judged harshly for that comment, luckily he expected this, and was quick to make up for it. “Oh, of course, nothing wrong with such a trait! It’s part of the reason he was so beloved! But, you know, sometimes for the sake of public health and safety, personal feelings should be put aside…”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw movement he could only assume was nods of approval and murmurs of agreement. Recovery successful!

“I’ll see to it that her operations are shut down immediately! Thank you so much for bringing it to my attention, darling!”

The elemental balked, a small ripple spreading through her body like a stone in a pond. “O-oh! I mean, you don’t need to do that, man! Maybe just you know, ask her to exclude the bugs?”

But lo, Mettaton was no longer listening. She’d asked her question and recieved an answer, no need to drag it out any longer. Especially considering he had many, many questions to get to. So he just waggled his fingers goodbye as a guard gently guided her away from the mic. 

Next up was actually two monsters. A brown-furred bear cub bounced a few times, paws spread to the air to try and grab the microphone from it’s stand. After the youngling’s third tried and failed attempt, the larger bear monster beside him - presumably his mother - sighed and took it down for him. She leaned over slightly so he could snatch it from her grasp. The cub pressed the mic uncomfortably close to his mouth, heavy breathing reverberating through the surround sound as he gazed up at Mettaton with wide, sparkling eyes. 

“Can you get rid of the snowball tax?”

Up until that point, Mettaton had found the display rather charming. Dare he say adorable. Giving a patient smile to the kid as he watched his battle with the mic stand. The question though...the question uh, threw him off completely.

Blinking once, twice, all Mettaton could think to reply with was; “Uh...pardon me, hun?”

The cub was quick to elaborate, “There’s a tax on snowballs, mama said so. It’s that I gotta give her 1g every time I throw a snowball at someone. Can you get ridda it?” Mettaton opened his mouth to respond that perhaps this wasn’t his place but - the cub kept going before he could get any words out. “I don’t gotta lot of money. I only get my allowance every other weekend, and I only get 30g but I had to ask mama a lot to get her to raise it to that cause before I only got 20g and-” And on, and on, and on, and on...about snowballs, and allowances, and the bully at school who really deserved to be hit with snowballs sometimes, and-

My god, he just kept  _ going _ .

Mettaton’s jaw hung open at how much the little guy had to say, looking at mama bear with a look that could only be read as “help??”. She let out a deep sigh, dragging a paw down her face and shaking her head slightly as she mumbled something to herself that Mettaton didn’t quite catch. Looked down to her cub, back at Mettaton, pulled a face - and finally gave the absolute tiniest of nods.

“Well!” Mettaton was quick to cut off the little bear (who, yes, was  _ still _ going) once he had been given the go-ahead. The cub immediately shut his trap, looking at Mettaton in attentive silence. “You make some very compelling points! Erm - apologies, I don’t believe I got your name?”

“Well, it’s Tim. But my mama calls me Timmy, and so do my friends sometimes. My dad messes up and calls me Tom a lot cause he forgets a lot and-”

“Timmy!” Mettaton snapped, forcing a grin so wide his cheeks hurt and voice coming out a bit strained. Trying to get the cub to - and goodness he hated to be rude to children but -  _ god please just hush, be quiet, shoosh.  _ “Lovely! Wonderful name! Consider the snowball tax done away with!”

Mama bear let out another sigh through her nose. Timmy opened his mouth to start up again, but to Mettaton’s relief she took the mic from his paws before he could. She placed it gingerly back in it’s stand, and dragged her cub back to their seats. Timmy waved his free paw goodbye at Mettaton before he disappeared into the aisles.

Monster number 3 blinked it’s one eye uncomfortably between Mettaton and the retreating child, but quickly took to the mic and cleared their throat. “I had a question about the royal guard, actually.” They began.

Oh! Mettaton was excited to hear this, actually. Because this was one of the things he had given quite a bit of thought to!

“Well with Undyne uh...gone..” They faltered over the statement, as if it hurt them to say it. And really, who could blame them? The loss of Undyne was a sore subject for everyone. She had been beloved, an idol for many. A lot of monsters had lived their whole lives only knowing Undyne as the captain.

Many...but not all. Because, personally? Mettaton had never gotten the appeal. Sure, she would be missed, and had been missed. And he wasn’t so heartless to say that he didn’t understand those mourning. Understood, but couldn’t say he could sympathize. He did try to! But...honestly he had never cared for Undyne, important figure or not. She was rude to him, and loud. Once he saw her wash her hair in the rain and to this day the memory squicked him out. Even when he lived on the farm he never liked her, she had never tried to be a good neighbor as far as he was aware. Many  _ lovely  _ childhood memories of Mads having to go over and yell at her to quiet down, she was scaring the snails. And it had to be Mads, because Napsta would just mutter to themselves that it was fine, don’t worry about it, and Mettaton at the time was well...a kid. Screamfests were  _ so _ much fun to overhear! (Not.) Just...ugh. He didn’t like her, never would’ve liked her. He had always questioned why of all women, Alphys had chosen Undyne to be infatuated with.   
  
Oh - wait - cyclops monster was still speaking. Should he be paying more attention? Probably. 

“-so, uh, sorry for rambling so long. But I guess bottom line is, do you have an idea for replacement captain?”

“Very good question!” Mettaton began, hoping he hadn’t missed too much additional details while he’d been zoned out. “Actually, I’ve been reworking the guard. For as long as anyone can remember, their duties have primarily been human-hunting and peacekeeping. But...well, let’s face it, darlings. Neither of those happen quite often. The first human to have fallen down here in - goodness -  _ decades -  _ slipped through their grasp with devastating results, and...there’s not really much crime. I feel as if - I feel as if the title has lost meaning.” He frowned, “The guard has been, and I hate to say this. A bit...useless for some time. They’ve gotten rusty at their most important task due to lack of doing anything. So! I’ve separated the guard into various, er…”task forces”.” He enunciated this with air quotes, “Some work on MPE, some work stationed throughout the Underground, some are my personal bodyguards, et cetera, et cetera. Once projects finish up, I’ll reassign them to new ones that are surely to pop up. The thing is with this new guard, though, is it makes it difficult to have one singular person over the entirety of these widely ranging duties.” He shrugged, shifting on his chaise to fold his hands behind his head. “Right now the guard answers directly to me, in the future I might assign heads to each faction. But right now, I don’t really see need to.”

Mettaton actually felt rather smart with his answer! See, he did have this whole king thing in the bag! His ego only being further fueled as he noticed a few monsters in the front row shrug and nod along with his long-winded explanation. The one-eyed monster that had asked the question also seemed pleased with this explanation. 

“Oh! I see! That makes a lot of sense actually! Uh, thank you!”

And so it goes. Monsters took their turns to the mic, some asking more serious questions than others, some asking weirder personal questions. Some questions more...interesting than others. Faces blurred together, and soon enough Mettaton stopped committing appearances to memory entirely. 

“Do you plan to appoint an heir?”   


“I don’t plan on dying anytime soon, love.”

“Can I get an autograph?”

“Of course! But after the show.”

“So like - my mom died - not to the human actually like 3 years ago. Her house has been empty since then and I’ve been trying to inherit it-”   
  
“You should speak with my secretary about that, if you can find where he’s wandered off to.”

“Do you plan to hire a new royal scientist?”   
  
“Next question.”   
  
“What are glamburgers made of if you’re a vegetarian?”

“Don’t worry about it!”   
  
More and more questions came, Mettaton becoming increasingly comfortable with both answering, and well just in general. To the question of advisors, he sang high praise of Papyrus. Law clarifications? Easy peasy. Was he still planning on running his show regularly? What about the resort? Both fears he put to rest very quickly with reassurances he would never dream of anything of the sort. So on, so forth.

At about the two hour mark, Mettaton had gotten so relaxed he’d sprawled across his chaise, eyes closed and balancing a curly straw between his teeth that lead from a champagne flute. Filled with sparkling water, not alcohol. One of his stangehands had brought it to him not long ago. Why had he gotten so stressed out about this before? This was easy! Even a bit fun!

At hour four, Mettaton had rolled over onto his belly, chin nestled in his folded arms. If one was none the wiser, he looked like he was napping. Actually - he kind of was, only taking in words he thought were important, giving quick answers to meet the bare minimum, the rest of his energy going to trying to keep himself barely enough awake. As he got a break inbetween monsters, he yawned wide, propping his face up with his hand.

“I feel like it’s about time I call it a night, lovelies!” He chimed, “I’ll take a few more questions and then I’ll have to retreat to my quarters. Even robots need their beauty sleep! Now, next please!”

The noise that echoed into the microphone as the next monster stepped forward caused Mettaton to snap straight to attention. Eye snapping open, pushing himself straight up on his chaise and staring down at who had just snatched the mic off it’s stand in...fear? Confusion? Awe? Green eyes, a twisted grin - pink kitty ears and jingling bells as a matching pink tail swished back and forth across the floor. Speak, or offhandedly think of, the devil and she shall appear...

“Where’s my 20 bucks?”

Mettaton groaned, deflating into his chair as he ran fingers through his hair. His usually smooth and sultry voice turning into a frustrated whine. “Mads, is this really necessary? I’m  _ busy _ -”

It was fascinating how quickly his show persona disappeared when faced with something, someone, he was on casual terms with. When faced with the wrath of his cousin’s very  _ very _ annoyingly timed demands. Very few people ever saw this more “real” side of him, in fact, some of the crowd seemed shocked when his regular voice came out. Not the smooth baritone most were familiar with; his regular speaking voice was actually a bit higher-pitched and more well...natural sounding. Yes, even his  _ voice  _ was a part of the act.

More nerve-wracking jingling sounded out as the anime cat girl from hell shook her head, “Nahnahnah, don’t you “I’m busy” me.” Mads sneered, the face of her new body twisting into a yellow-toothed snarl. “I know you got it. I mean it’s pretty fuckin’ obvious you got it mister high society. So where the hell is it?” 

“ _ Correctionnn-” _ Mettaton snapped, holding up one finger and shifting to sit on his knees. “No money ever passed between us. It was a stupid bet and I cannot believe you’ve held onto it this long.”

“A bet you lost! Fair and square! And everytime I fuckin’ ask you about it you blow me off and tell me you’ll do it later!”

The remaining crowd, those who either hadn’t gotten a question in, wanted to see the full show, or had decided they had nothing better to do with their night than attend a show that had started to stretch into the witching hours. No matter the reason they’d stayed, they at this moment had one thing in common; confusion. A lot of confusion. Who...was this girl exactly? How did she know Mettaton this well? A bet??

The star himself was becoming increasingly flustered as he was chewed out in front of a live audience, and his increasing blush was broadcasted to every TV set in the Underground. Quiet snickering amongst the crowd didn’t go missed, and embaressment started to turn slowly into boiling panic. They were laughing at him. He was being laughed at.

“Mads, Maddie, darling, angel - ca-can we talk about this after the show?” Mettaton tried to regain composure, offer compromise, diffuse the situation. He’d even attempted to dress once more in show-facade. Voice returning to the deepness most were familiar with, but it kept cracking into something more squeaky and strained as he babbled on. He was being mocked - in front of his people, in front of his  _ audience _ . He wondered if he was having a panic attack.

“Oh, there you go again!” Mads huffed, rolling her eyes over dramatically. “Excuses, excuses, excuses. Every fuckin’ time!” The spot on the floor under her tail must’ve been swept spotless by now, what with all the angry twitching. “It’s been years-”

“EXACTLY!” Mettaton barked in return, his closest stagehand flinching at the sudden shouting. “It’s been years! Let! It! Go!”

“Not until you pay me.”

Exasperated, embarrassed, exhausted, many other words starting with ex, and just plain wanting this situation to end. A very strained whine came from somewhere in his voicebox, “ _ Fine.” _

Stretching his leg out, he shoved his hand underneath the hem of his leggings, against his hip, produced from seemingly nowhere a wallet covered in pastel pink fur and sparkles, dug out a fistful of bills, and shoved it at that same stagehand that had gotten startled by his yelling. All the while Mads punctuating his actions with “Yea, yea that’s right. Pay up.” Her grin bordered on sadistic.

Mettaton sank back into his chaise, hands hiding his burning face, as his stagehand delivered the money to one very obnoxious cat doll. She snatched it from the other monster’s hands, counted out the bills, and nodded in satisfaction when she saw he actually gave her 40 in his rush. She pocketed the money into her skirt, and gave Mettaton a two-fingered salute. “Don’t hold out on me again.”

Heel turned, and marched out of the auditorium completely.   
  
Well that was certainly...interesting. Mettaton’s fingers parted just enough to watch her leave. Well whatever energy he had had left felt like it had just been burned away from him in the span of a few minutes. “If anyone else here has... _ personal requests _ ...For yours truly, please hold it until after the show.”   
  
Somewhere from the crowd was a quiet cussing and a door slam, the noise caught Mettaton’s attention, just in time to see a retreating pink-orange blur. The sight would’ve amused Mettaton more if he hadn’t scheduled Burgerpants for the graveyard shift today. Well! That just gave him a reason to visit later, oh joy!

Well, with that happy little thought hadn’t brought back Mettaton’s energy, but it did give him a little boost. So he smiled, and beckoned the next monster to the mic.

“What are you going to do about the humans?”

Aaand there went his happiness again. The smile disappearing from his face so fast you’d think he’d been slapped, the wide eyed expression that followed certainly didn’t help with that comparison. “Humans? There aren’t any around, dear. I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“Oh? Really? That’s what they said before. What everyone said, Asgore didn’t have a real plan either. And now look where he is.” The wolf lowered his muzzle, piercing yellow eyes fitting Mettaton with a death glare. “So what’s your plan then? The same? Absolutely nothing?”   
  
To be 100% honest, the wolf was right on the money. Mettaton had never even considered what he’d do if another human fell down here. The possibility was so slim in his mind, he’d never thought he’d have to deal with it. After all, Frisk was the first real human he’d ever seen in his life. And sure, he hadn’t been around as long as some other monsters. But, still, he knew he wasn’t alone in that. 

“Well, erm, I do think Asgore’s whole “kill humans on sight” policy was a bit brutal.” Words tumbled out of his mouth before he gave any real thought to them. And once he’d started he had to keep going, or else he’d look hesitant. Uncertain. “So, we’ll be having no more of that. Why, if another human falls down - they can join the fanclub!”

Even Mettaton inwardly cringed at what he’d just said.  _ Join the fanclub? Really???  _ But - he had spoken it into existence, and it was so. And it was law. A law that caused the wolf monster to pin his ears back, and curl lips back in a snarl.   
  
“That’s  _ it?  _ Let them “join the fanclub”?” He said it mockingly, exaggerating how stupid it sounded. His voice dripped with cobra’s venom, but Mettaton hardly finched. Refusing to be scared of this...this brute. Trying to scare im with sharp teeth and sharper words.

In fact the threat display only encouraged Mettaton to lean into his nonchalance, making a point that he wouldn’t be intimidated into changing his mind. “Oh, hush. People like you are too stuck in the past.” He yawned, lounging backwards again and making himself comfy. “Humans did this, you say, humans did that. Monsters did so-and-so to such-and-such. It’s exhausting even to keep up with. I can’t imagine having a mindset like you.”

“And they say those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it,” The wolf pointed out, folding his arms. “And it has repeated. It just repeated. How many monsters are in your “Mising Persons Effort” - how’s that going, by the way? How many have turned up  _ dead?” _   


Mettaton shrugged, knowing better than to take bait. “Oh, I don’t have numbers off the top of my head.” Truth be told, he didn’t have any numbers. He had never actually kept total count of anything related to the MPE. It was mostly the dogs who knew numbers like that, and kept record of all that they’d found. He usually tuned out during their meetings unless they had something particularly juicy to tell him. “Dwelling on the past, though...I found it rather depressing. I tend to take life as it comes at me, never idling too much about the past or worrying too much about the future. I plan to reflect on that in my leading style. You know, you should try it. It’s much less stressful.”

“Oh shut UP-” The wolf roared, finally managing to make Mettaton startle some. His shoulders jolting and back going stiff.   
  
“You have the freedom to do that. Not everyone does, hell, most people  _ don’t _ . You weren’t around for the war, neither was I. But you know who was? My grandmother was. She told me...she told me things about her time in the war.” The wolf flexed his fingers, chest heaving in heavy breaths. “The things humans said about us, thought about us -  _ did to us.” _ He glanced to the guards stationed by, the way they were standing more at attention, the way they gripped the hilts of their swords. The wolf curled his fingers into his palms, hiding his claws. He stood up straighter, though, staring Mettaton in the eye.    


“And guess where she is now? Guess what that thing did to her? Did to her, and not to you? Because humans love things like you. Built in a lab to be cute and entertain, how could you empathize? You’re not even a real monster, you’re a mockery of one.”

Mettaton’s eye narrowed to a slit, fixing the wolf with an ice cold stare. A tremor of barely controlled rage wracked his frame as he pushed himself to sit straight. Matching the wolf’s posture. “You say that as if I haven’t been hurt by the human too. I lost someone to them, we all lost someone. You aren’t special in your hurting. I wasn’t around for the war, and I’m a lot younger than Asgore was. So I must be stupid, yes? I’m nothing but an airheaded bimbo to you? Just because-” he grit his teeth, hesitating a bit on his next words. He questioned to himself if it was better to tell the truth, perhaps gain some footing on an argument that was spiraling fast. Or further sink into a lie, and sow new reason for monsterkind to distrust his rule.

“Just-just because I’m artificial,” He had chosen the lie, “Means I’m less of a monster than you? As if I haven’t lived my entire life among you all? Everything I do, I do for the good of monsterkind. What do my origins matter?”

“Because you’ve already proven how you think,” The wolf growled, punctuating his words with hand gestures. “You’ve proven you’ve learned nothing from living among us. You’re selfish. Selfish and greedy. You care about no one that isn’t yourself, and you care more about your public image than the people you’re presenting that image to. How am I supposed to trust you to have any empathy for monsterkind? To do things for the good of the people?”   
  
The wolf snorted, finally letting his hands go lax and he shook his head. “You know what? Don’t answer that. This whole thing has already given me as much answer I need.” A large paw shoved away the monster that had been standing behind him in line. The wolf marching his way to the exit, “I await the day they drag you from the throne kicking and screaming.”

The small tremor had turned into full-on shaking as Mettaton watched him leave. Steam puffed from his vents, chest heaving in deep breaths as he tried to calm himself down. His eye felt warm with tears that threatened to spill. The cocker spaniel that had been manning the question line looked up at him, tilting her head to the side in wordless question.

“We’re done here.”   



	6. Maddie, Thank You for the Dialetics, But I Need You To Leave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mettaton and Mads share a drink

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY SO this is a weird chapter so let me explain what's going on here.
> 
> This chapter actually time skips backwards by just a little bit, this actually takes place sometime between chapter 3 and 4. 
> 
> The tldr is that Mads wasn't originally going to be in the last chapter, her scene in ch5 was a spur of the moment thing I thought would be funny. Cause I love mads and wanted to include her in the story somehow, and then I thought that I wanted to explore her and Metta's relationship a little bit in this story to kind of explain Mettaton's upbringing and how it kind of plays into the way he is right now. SO initially this chapter was going to be a missing scene oneshot, seperate but connected to this fic. But then I decided against it and just shoved it in as an odd one out missing scene chapter. Also hence why it has a chapter name cause this was gonna be the name of the one shot if I posted it as that.
> 
> This is the only chapter that's going to be like this in terms of not being in chronological order! 
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

Life at the castle was...difficult. Not bad, not in the least bit bad, but...difficult. Mettaton couldn’t quite pinpoint his exact reasonings for disliking it, it was more a combination of things, really. Perhaps it was the discomfort of sleeping in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room, maybe it unnerved him to know he had someone constantly stationed outside his bedroom door, never being let true privacy. Or maybe it was just the fact he had come to expect he could be woken up at any time to respond to something that the guards had deemed needed his royal attention right this second, and absolutely couldn’t wait till he woke up at his own accord. The mere knowledge preventing him from sleeping soundly.

Maybe that would be the next law he passed, “Don’t wake up the king unless someone is dying. And then, first check to make sure someone important is dying.”. That sounded good, straight to the point. Hm...so many things he could do now as king. So many things except be left alone in his room… That was the driving reason behind why he was spending his night at the lab, anyway. At least Alphys had always respected his space, even if he couldn’t say he’d always done the same. Well, add that to the filing cabinet of regrets, labeled under “Alphys”.

His order to leave the lab untouched was still in effect, and Mettaton wasn’t planning on lifting that anytime soon. (perhaps another new law.) So, while it lasted, Mettaton could retreat to his old bedroom for some time to himself. Truly to himself. No guards, no concerned skeletons (Papyrus was sweet, bless him, but he could get overbearing sometimes.). Just him, his thoughts, and about 50 or so stuffed animals that he kept stacked on his bed and around the room. 

He had taken the time to repair the burnt out fairy lights around hsi room, just to lighten up the place a little. It wasn’t too hard to find replacement LEDs around the lab; between all the times Mettaton had asked for flashier and flashier additions to his body, or an extra kick to his costumes, or Alphys’s own projects, she had collected probably the lion’s share of all the LED bulbs in the Underground. And he was grateful for it, truly. The soft, subtle lighting made his room feel more cozy, soothing even. The glitz and glam of his day-to-day was exciting, sure, and he absolutely wouldn’t trade it for the world. But, still, it was nice to rest his eyes now and again. 

Mettaton rolled over, face first into his pillows. The length of his charging cable wound down from his neck and round and round his legs from tossing and turning, he never had been a very graceful sleeper. It was almost funny, in his waking hours he took all the precautions to make sure he came off as nothing but light on his feet and beautiful, but then again it’s not like he could be conscious of what he looked like as he slept. An ambient purr rose from his chest, finally turning his face out of his pillows to prop his cheek against the plush lion he was clinging to instead. He sneezed when he tried to sigh deeply but ended up just getting a strong whiff of perfume instead. He was surprised it still smelled so strongly, considering he hadn’t been in this room for months. It was...actually kind of reassuring, and calming. A living reminder of “the more things change”, or something poetic like that. He was too sleepy to come up with something better right now.

Mettaton had always had trouble sleeping, he wondered if it was because he used to not be able to sleep at all. Ghosts only really pretended to sleep, after all. Alphys had said something something insomnia, something something a side effect or symptom of...well, something. He had actually never listened to closely on her psych evals of him. Sciency terms he didn’t quite understand, or maybe didn’t want to understand. (He probably should’ve listened more, maybe he wouldn’t be here right now if he had.) At the very least, he had understood it was why Alphys had installed him with a forced sleep mode, to use if he so needed it. After all, he worked a very high-energy job and needed all the sleep he could get. It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to use it now, since he’d been flopping back and forth on his bed, lost in thought, for some length of time. He had lost track of exactly how much time.

His systems whined to a halt as Mettaton activated it, getting comfy as his vision blurred before blacking out completely...

A crash from outside awakened Mettaton with a start. Panic flaring up in him for a brief moment before it settled back down into frustration. He groaned, rolling over and squinting in the near-darkness at the clock on his bedside table. Backlit pink numbers blinked back at him “2:35am”. _2 in the morning…?_ What the hell could be going on at 2 in the morning?! Nobody was supposed to be in here, king’s orders! And it’s not like there was anyone else in the building, maybe a few rats lingering in the basement. But he didn’t think that would’ve made that loud of a noise. Mettaton rolled back over onto his back, arm slung across his eyes as he let out another, louder groan. He kicked his legs in a mini tantrum before shoving himself off the side of the bed. 

He sat on the edge for a minute, rubbing at his eye, trying to wake up a bit before he stormed down the hallway and chewed out whoever had broken in. That way he’d come off more operly angry, something to be intimidated by, instead of just ‘teenager who just woke up’. And also so he could untangle his charging cable from himself. The fact it was so long was both a blessing and a curse. The one thing he didn’t bother to fix was his bedhead as he shoved himself to his feet fully and stormed out the room.

The rest of the lab was still mainly dark, as he had left it. Some emergency lights lit the stairway and downstairs, that he remembered being on before he went to bed. The thing he didn’t remember leaving on was a light towards the end of the hallway. He sighed, exiting his room fully and closing the door behind him, more delicately than he had opened it. He made his way towards the light to yell at whoever it was that had broken in against strict order. Probably a guard, it had to have been one of the guard. Who else would’ve known he was here? Maybe Papyrus? He had quickly ruled out Sans, who he doubted would’ve cared enough to go through the effort of breaking and entering. 

Frustration was turning into anger as Mettaton pondered the thought a guard had come in against his wishes. Though, it was strange that said guard had chosen to stumble around the place in the dark, surely what the crash was from. God, what was sooo incredibly important that they had to defy a strict order and only turn one light on in...in...

Mettaton’s heart sank when he realized the source of the light, why on earth would they need to go into Alphys’s bedroom? He had demanded, especially, that they leave her bedroom untouched. Hell _he_ wouldn’t even go in there. He picked up his speed as he continued down the hallway, trying to maintain a cool demeanor as he rehearsed a lecture in his head. Something cool, calculated, radiating icy anger. Scare them a little bit, let them know he meant business. And don’t cry, whatever you do don’t explode and cry. Anger bawling wasn’t good for your image. He took a deep breath to steady his nerves, and stepped into the door frame, arms folded across his chest and glaring.  
  
The first thing he noticed was the bed had been thrown onto it’s side, undoubtedly the source of the crash. But...there was no guard in the room, not Papyrus either. Or - anyone really. ANger quickly turned to confusion, Mettaton scanning the room to figure out what exactly had happened here. Beds don’t just flip over by themselves-

“Aw fuck yea that looks real nice.”

Mettaton’s attention was caught by a voice he didn’t recognize, quickly turning his head to look towards the direction it had come from. And for a moment, he was fully convinced this was some sort of lucid dream.

There was, in fact, someone else in the room with him. Standing in front of a full length mirror to the side of the room was a girl, admiring her reflection in the cracked glass. (Mettaton’s fault, actually. He had slammed into it some time ago when he was still getting used to having legs.) She wore a frilly pink dress, unnaturally pink hair tied into pigtails with oversized bells adorned her head, a pink cat tail curling on the floor this way and that. A white glove resembling a cat’s paw was propped against one hip, the other rubbing her chin as she pulled various faces in the mirror. Alphys’s anime girl - Mew Mew Kissy Cutie - standing in front of a full length mirror in her bedroom. 

There was no way in hell this was real.

“Limbs, that’s different.” She muttered to herself, continuing to rub at her chin. She kicked one leg out, then the other, stamping it back down to the ground. Then she grabbed her tail, pulling it round to the front for examination. “Tail, that’s _real_ fuckin’ different.”

As Mettaton watched her admire herself, he couldn’t help but think he didn’t quite recall a Boston accent and swearing like a sailor to be in the lore of MMKC. He had never paid attention to the show that much, but this he was quite sure of.

The cat girl returned her hand to her chin, pulling back her lips to admire her teeth (Another thing Mettaton didn’t remember being a part of her lore - sharp, crooked teeth.) “Hm.” Was the only opinion she gave to herself about her grill, closing her mouth again. And after that she put her heels together, back straight like a tin soldier, tugging either end of her collar’s bow to fix it up a bit - and yelped in surprise when her head popped off. 

Alright, now Mettaton was for sure something was up here.

“Jesus fuck that’s _really_ somethin’ to get used t’- AH-” the disembodied head rolled towards Mettaton’s direction, and that prompted the girl to finally notice she wasn’t alone in the room. Her eyes went wide in shock and her body whirled around to match it’s direction, tail puffed up and standing on end. A knife, glowing red, materialized in the air, zipping to point straight at Mettaton’s neck. “WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!”

Mettaton tilted his head slightly to avoid the tip of the magic knife, glaring down at the head on the floor, “I feel like that question might be more fitting of you, darling.”

The body’s tail swished angrily, trotting towards it’s lost head and scooping it off the floor. It was plopped non-gently back onto it’s neck, the girl swearing under her breath as she adjusted her cat collar. “That’s gonna be a pain in the ass. Hey, pretty boy, gimme a minute. Don’t leave.”

Mettaton shrugged, closing his eyes with the movement, he tapped his fingers against the inside of his arm as he waited. Not like he had anywhere else to be… He waited while the girl tightened up her accessory, and shifted it upwards towards the split in her neck. As he watched her, he was coming to realize there was an odd sense of familiarity to her he couldn’t quite place. Not just the fact she was a larger than life version of the little figurine he had stolen from Alphys’s shelf. No, there was something deeper here. The mannerisms, the odd accent, the fondness of knives, especially as magic…

“There we go.” She said finally, having situated her collar to where she wanted it. She gave her attention back to Mettaton, opened her mouth to say something, and once more got distracted. This time by something on the floor, “OH SHIT, this thing comes with accessories?!”

Mettaton was disregarded again, the girl diving towards the upturned bed and scooping a cat-shaped wand off the floor. Flipping it between her fingers and grinning in delight at the way the ribbons twirled through the air. Mettaton was fully convinced he had been forgotten about.

Mettaton being forgotten about, yet another thing from her he felt was oddly familiar.

“Oh I’m gonna have some _fun_ with this thing-”

Mettaton cleared his throat, trying to give her a subtle reminder that he was, in fact, still here. The girl took her eyes off the sparkly ribbons and looked back to him, lips curled back in a snarl. “I’m gettin’ to ya’! I’m gettin’ to ya’! Lord you’re impatient.”

She clambered over the bed, Mettaton questioning to himself why she couldn’t have just gone around. Once over it, she straightened out her petticoat and turned her attention back to Mettaton. The knife disappeared, Mettaton relaxing his head back into a more natural position. But before he could get too comfy, the tip of the cat wand replaced the knife against his neck. Mettaton wanted to be angry, but instead he was just annoyed.

“Anyway - gettin’ back to it. Who are you?”

“Mmhm…” Mettaton pressed his fingers against the new thing being pointed at his neck, pushing it downwards. He had no reason to be afraid of plastic kitty toys, as much as the stranger seemed to think otherwise. “And, like I’ve already told you; I should be asking you that. But maybe your memory of me can be jogged while you’re sitting in the dungeon on a trespassing violation.”  
  
The cat girl didn’t like that, ears pinning back and hissing, “TRESPASSING?! No one fuckin’ lives here anymore! Who fuckin’ cares if I’m in here, I ain’t hurtin’ no one!”

“Well, what about destroying property then?” Mettaton nodded towards the upturned bed.

“Oh now you’re just makin up reasons to get me in fuckin’ trouble, dick.” She growled, lowering the wand to her hip.

“Then we’ll go back to trespassing,” Mettaton hummed, folding his arms once more. “There’s signs all over the doors to stay out, you know. Ones you’ve ignored.”

She shrugged, “Signs don’t tend to apply to me.”

“Oh! Is that so?” Mettaton cooed like he was talking to a small child, tilting his head to one side and pursing his lips.

“Yep.” Her pupils narrowed, mocking his pose by folding her own arms.

“So are you stupid? Or just reckless?”

“Been called a little bit of both, though I more like t’ think myself a rebel. A girl on her own, no rules, just right-”

“Oh my, I’m not surprised.”

“And what’s _that_ supposed t’mean?” 

“My, whatever you’d like it to, doll!”

“Hardeharr, very funny.”

The girl moved forward, reaching up to shove her hand through Mettaton’s bangs. He let her, eye idly following her movements as she brushed the hair out of the normally hidden half of his face. She examined it in silence for a moment, at the missing silicone, the blinded eye…

“...Couldn’t get that fixed, huh?” She muttered, in such a soft voice, if Mettaton hadn’t been there to witness it, he would have never believed it came from her.

In response, he just shrugged, “Even if she could, I don’t think I would’ve wanted her to.”

The girl backed up again, putting her hands on her hips. Mads looked up at him with a sad smile. “I knew it. I knew it was you. Man it’s...it’s been a while, huh?”

Mettaton was finally able to relax now that he wasn’t being threatened by pointy things being pointed at his throat. He took the time to brush his hair back into his face, and while he was at it run his fingers through the rest of his hair to brush it out a little, considering up until this point he had been walking around with his hair the same as he had rolled out of bed with. “That’s more your fault than mine, darling dear.”

Mads shrugged, twirling her little wand idly. “Ehh, can’t deny that. Not like I made much attempts to visit…” She turned her gaze to the floor, shifting her foot uncomfortably before clearing her throat. “Uh...can I get a hug?”

Mettaton had finally finished up with his hair, raising a brow in suprise at her request. “You? Hug? My, my, I didn’t take you as the type.”

“Oh, shut up! Maybe I changed my mind!” She grunted, tapping her wand against the ground and huffing. “So do you want it or not?”

Mettaton smirked, sticking his tongue out between his teeth. Mads gave him a confused look, “Why’re you lookin me like th- AY-” 

Before she could change her mind, or further protest, he had pulled her in against his chest. Arms looping around her more times than necessary and squeezing her tight. She let out a disgruntled meowing noise, stiffening in his grasp and kicking to try and free herself. But, after a minute, she reluctantly gave in, thunking her head against his shoulder pad with a huff. To which Mettaton only took as motivation to cuddle her harder, smushing his chin on top of her head and purring.

It was an uncomfortably long time Mettaton stood there with her, swaying slightly on his heels. “...I missed you.”

Aaand that was the dealbreaker, “Hey hey, I didn’t say get sappy with me.” Mads started up her wiggling again to try and escape his grasp. This time, though, he relented, uncoiling his arms and letting her drop the small distance to the floor.

She stumbled, arms flailing to try and catch her balance. She managed to catch herself by grabbing onto a set of drawers, glaring down at her feet. Therein she found the root of her issue - of course, this was a doll. A doll meant to wear heeled shoes, meaning her own ankles were permanently pointed into a tiptoed position on kitty paw feet to accommodate.

“Oh you gotta be kiddin’ me…” She growled, ears pinning back. She tried to pin her heels lower to the floor to get a better balance. Well, trying and failing.

By this point, Mettaton thought he had a pretty good idea of what had happened here, from the clearly doll-like body to the upturned bed. Though….something in him found it hard to be mad at it, and he wondered if Alphys would’ve felt the same. Sure, the initial shock of having what must’ve surely been a rare collectable stolen in such a strange fashion probably would’ve upset her at first. But, how different was it from his own body? Despite the fact his was custom built? Actually, he kind of wondered if Alphys had studied the doll to some extent while planning his own body’s joints and features.

He went to push the bed back upright, making the covers and fluffing the pillows while Mads continued to stomp around behind him. He had to hold his tongue to avoid pointing out she had been balancing _just fine_ before. MEttaton sighed, turning to her once he had finished fixing the bed.

“Oh, stop it. You’re going to break it. You can have some of my shoes if it bothers you so much, I don’t really use them anyway.”

Mads stopped mid-step, one leg held out straight in front of her, balancing perfectly on one foot with no sign of toppling over. Which, again, made Mettaton scream inside his head at her ridiculousness.

“GREAT!” She suddenly shouted, causing Mettaton to flinch. She didn’t wait up as she marched towards the door and out into the hall, already making her way towards the bright pink door in the hallway before Mettaton could even begin to follow her. “I was raiding your room while you were conked out, I actually saw somethin’ I liked.”

* * *

Mettaton sat on his knees as he sorted through the pile of shoes on the floor of his closet, trying to match together pairs, decipher which heels were the correct height for Mads, and sorting them accordingly. He had never stopped to realize how much of a mess his personal closet really was. At the studio his costumes were always carefully sorted and stored based on occasion. Dresses and suits for formal events in one section, various eccentric costumes for stage performances in another, there was a portion specifically dedicated to accessories, and so on and so forth. Of course, at the studio he had paid staff members who’s sole duty was to take care of his clothing. Here at the lab, it was all up to him. And it really was a testament to how disorganized he truly was without the help of paid employees.

Half his clothes weren’t even hung up, legwear and various items too heavy or awkwardly shaped for clothes hangers fallen to the floor. There was a sleek black dress still in drycleaning plastics shoved to the very end of a rack, he could only recall wearing it once. His shoes were in a huge pile on the closet floor, not given much care how they landed or how hard it was to find them again. He didn’t remember buying a large majority of these. To be fair, though, he didn’t go into this closet that much. A lot of these were clothes he bought while he was still using BETA, in excited preparation for EX. Hell, he even picked up a pink sweater that was very clearly square-shaped. Maybe he could repurpose it into sleepwear or something. Also - hence the unnecessarily large collection of shoes he could even wear. The signature pink stilettos were a permanent fixture to his body, Alphys having told him she had planned to give him an alternative set of legs with regular feet if he ever wanted to change it up a little.

But that had never gotten finished, and he didn’t entirely trust Sans to take up the torch on that project.

He sighed, setting back on his heels and folding his hands in his lap. He glanced over to where Mads had been excitingly trying on every pair he offered to her. If a pair didn’t fit, or she didn’t like the style, it was quickly ripped off and tossed somewhere through the room, not a care in the world given to where it landed or what it hit on the journey over. Right now, she was trying to fit into a pair of white velvet boots, the fabric styled so it was loose around the ankles and having pink pompom balls dangling on strings. She leaned back and admired them once they were on her feet, kicking her heels against the floor, entranced by the way the pompoms bounced along with her.

“Well, I think that’s all of them.” Mettaton said, rolling his hips to sit on his ass, arm flopped against his knees as he watched her. He glanced around the room to where all the thrown shoes had landed, making a note of what he had to clean up later. He pouted a little when he noticed one had kicked a plushie down from it’s shelf. He pushed himself off the floor to right what had been wronged, telling himself he’d clean up the rest of the mess later. It wasn’t like he was trying to impress anyone, after all. 

“Too bad only a few of ‘em fit.” Mads said, sitting on her knees and gathering the small ‘like’ pile she had made closer to her, shoving them into one shoebox. “...Still firm I can’t have the stripper boots?”

“Very firm.” Mettaton snapped, not turning away from his task. He scooped the little toy off the floor and put it back in its place. Fixing it’s tiny ears and giving it a pat on the head.

“Damn.” Mads huffed, plopping her rear back on the floor and stretching her legs out in front of her. She leaned back on her hands, watching Mettaton for a minute before looking more around the room. At the pink star-shaped fairy lights, the canopy bed, the little plush dolls Mettaton was so concerned over. “Haven’t changed at all, have ya’?”

Mettaton hummed in response, “Well, I would say I’ve changed a lot.”

“Nah.” Mads shook her head, and stopping once she felt the broken joint jiggle too much for comfort. “I mean, sure ya’ got a new look and a new name. But you’re still the same kid I knew. It’s kinda fuckin’ impressive ya’ managed to make almost the exact same bedroom twice-”

“Three times.” Mettaton corrected, satisfied with his shelf reorganizing. He moved towards the gilded liquor cabinet on the opposing wall.” When you left I moved out of upstairs, actually I moved into your house.

She shrugged, “Eh, can’t be mad at that. Ain’t like I was plannin’ on comin’ back.” 

“You made that very clear…” Mettaton popped the lock on the cabinet, sliding open the glass door. He pursed his lips at the contents of it, shifting some of the taller bottles around as he searched for something in specific. “Blooky cried for weeks, you know.”

A grunt, Mads cast her gaze to the floor. “Yea I...kind of figured. Always a crybaby.” Her ears perked up, and she grinned in Mettaton’s direction. “So how much did _you_ cry then, ya big sap?” 

Mettaton didn’t respond.

“Thought so,” Mads snorted, his silence was answer enough. “You were always such a baby too.I think you took too much after ‘em.” She went quiet for a while, “Hey, uh, how’ve they been anyway?”

Mettaton paused, fingers tapping against the glass of the cabinet door, “Wouldn’t know, I haven’t seen them in a while.”

“Yea? Me...me neither…” The tip of her tail twitched uncomfortably as the silence stretched into minutes, only broken by the clinking of glass as Mettaton continued his searching the cabinet. “...We’re kind of terrible people, aren’t we?”

“Maybe you.” Mettaton huffed, having finally made his selection. He set aside a bottle and picked up two wine glasses from the inside rock. “At least I didn’t leave with a screaming fit.”

Mads’ ears pinned down as low as they could, “Wow, you _really_ haven’t changed.”

“Oh hush, I’m giving you shoes.” Mettaton slid the door shut on the cabinet, settling down on the floor across from Mads. He sat down between them in the shag carpet, a fat glass bottle, filled with something pink and sparkly. He handed one of the wine glasses out to Mads, a wordless offering.

Mads tilted her head, giving a playful grin, “Am I encouragin’ underage drinking? Hold old are y’ now?”

Mettaton rolled his eyes, “Oh, please. I’ve been drinking since I was 14 and you know that, and now you’re concerned?” 

“Doesn’t answer my question.” 

Mettaton sighed deeply, putting his hand over his face and grumbling out at a barely audible level, “...19.”

Mads whistled, curling her tail around to her lap. “Damn, 19! And how long you been that?”

“A few...few years…” Mettaton didn’t like talking about his age. He had always been slightly embarrassed about the fact he would never reach legal drinking age in ghost years.

Mads gave a loud cackle, finally taking the offered glass from him. “Aww! So you’re forever baby!”

Mettaton’s eye narrowed, giving her an unimpressed look. “Do you want booze or not?”

“Oh you big wuss. Fine, fine. I’ll shut it.” She settled down, holding the glass between her legs as she watched Mettaton struggle with the cork of the bottle. It wasn’t full to the top, she noticed, but not by much.

“Either you’re servin’ me crap booze in a Gucci belt or ya’ really, really love me.” She pointed out.

“Neither,” Mettaton retorted, “I just forgot I had this. I get so many bottles as fan gifts it’s hard to keep up with sometimes. But, I have been told this is one of my better bottles, very rare.”

“So you _do_ love me,” Mads purred, tail lifting off the ground and swishing through the air. (she was leaning into the cat thing rather quickly, Mettaton noticed. Briefly he wondered what else she had been closeting for all these years).

“Well of course I do, dear.” Mettaton had finally gotten the cork out, setting it to the side and filling up his glass. The glitter swirling around the surface in a whirlpool, “I figured this occasion was worth breaking out the good labels over. Finding each other again, your new body. It’s all very exciting, isn’t it?”

Mads shrugged, snatching the bottle from him once he was done and pouring herself a glass. For a moment Mettaton worried he hadn’t thought this through, fully expecting glittery pink drink to come pouring out the seam in the kitty doll’s neck. But, monster food’s magic properties held up even to unfused ghosts. Or...monster alcohol, as it were. She took a long swig without problem, and balanced the glass between her fingers, swirling it around to stir up the glitter. Pretty, probably didn’t add to the drink in any way once so ever, but petty.

“You’re lyin’ to me,” she said, giving him a knowing look, “Couple hours ago you were throwin’ a tantrum at me, wanting me to get out so you could get back to your brooding. What’s got ya’ changing your mind so sudden?”

Mettaton wouldn’t admit it word for word, she was right. He had an ulterior motive here, and the alcohol was to serve as a social lubricant. It just so happened he could also disguise it as a celebratory gesture by pulling out something expensive and showing off a little bit.

“I’m playing pretend,” He said simply, staring at his glass to avoid eye contact. He didn’t elaborate, feeling he didn’t mean to. And he was right, because Mads knew exactly what he meant.

“Alright, I’ll play me, you’ll play the whiny brat.” Mads snickered, “How’s that sound, kiddo?”

He cringed at the nickname, but knew if he voiced his dislike of the name she’d just go out of her way to keep calling him that.

“So,” Mads began, setting her glass to the side, putting her hands on her knees and leaning forward. “Why don’t we start with why you were sitting alone in the dark? No adoring fans to cuddle up with?”

Mettaton took a sip from his own glass, still avoiding eye contact. He was much more delicate with his sipping than Mads’ mad chug, taking his sweet time with it. Not because he was savoring it, but because he was stalling for time as he thought of a way to answer. “Would you believe I wanted to be alone for once? As much as I love the attention, it’s stifling sometimes.”

Mads gasped, her face shifting into the anime look the doll had had before she possessed it and made it her own. A paw came up over her mouth, and her voice came out in a squeaky tone, “You? Wanting to be alone? Who are you and what have ya’ done with my cousin!”

“Suprising, I know.” Mettaton hummed into the rim of his cup, “Castle life...not as glamorous as I was expecting it to be.

Another faux gasp, this one even more high pitched and patronixing than the last, “Reallly?! You’re tellin’ me ruling kingdoms ain’t all royal balls, pretty crowns, finding prince charming?!”

Mettaton glared at her, “You don’t have to be so cruel about it.”

She dropped the act, face returning to normal. But not without a mean giggle, “Oh, alrigh’, alrigh’, I’ll quit the shit.” She picked up her glass again, lapping at her drink like...well, like a cat. (Again, she was really leaning into the cat thing.) She scrunched up her whiskers as it burned her throat, ending up coughing and pulling back, wiping her face in her sleeve. “Ugh - I thought that’d go over better.”

“Almost like it’s alcohol, strong alcohol. I don’t drink anything below 40%.” It was Mettaton’s turn to smirk, “But, no, you’re right. I did think this would be more like the movies. Less...stressful, less people demanding my time and attention.”

He tapped the side of his glass, leaning into his hand. “Gosh, that’s another thing I never expected to be thinking. Not wanting people to demand my attention. But, goodness, darling, the things these people ask of me...it’s like they think I’m a miracle worker instead of a ruler.”

He picked the bottle back up, refilling his glass to the brim and taking another sip. The booze was loosening his lips, and words came tumbling out before he could give much thought to them. “And they’ll show up unannounced all the time, no matter what I’m doing. If I turn them away, they’ll make some remark about “Well Asgore never would!”. So I’ve had to _stop_ turning them away, but that just means I now have to be prepared to be so rudely interrupted anytime, anywhere…”

“That’s rough buddy,” Mads refilled her glass as well. “Ya’ can’t just tell ‘em you’re busy? Ain’t cha still runnin’ your show?” Another swig, “Wouldn’t know, don’t get to watch it.”

Mettaton pouted, putting a hand to his chest in mock hurt. “You don’t watch my show?”

“Ay! Gimme a break! I’ve been livin’ in the dump ‘till now! Not like we got five star cable connection over there!” Mads snapped, “So yes or no, are you?”

“Well of course!” Mettaton leaned backwards against the foot of his bed. “Being king is only my part time, entertaining will always be my top priority. My life’s work, or “prime directive” as I’ve led the people to believe.”

Mads nearly spit out her drink at the unexpected robot lingo, “Prime directive? Christ, you feel some sort of fuckin’ drone?”

“Well, I have been presenting that I’m completely artificial. It’s the cover story Alphys wanted me to use, to impress Asgore, you see.” Mettaton drug his hand down his face, “It’s a...very long story to how I got here, I’ll spare you the details, love.”

“I can kinda infer, don’t sweat it.” Mads shrugged, “I think…” she paused, “Ya’ lookin for legit advice or do ya’ just want a bitching buddy?”

Mettaton had to actually think on that for a moment, “I’m curious to hear what kind of advice you of all people have to give.”

“Well, if you’re gonna have an attitude about it then never fucking mind,” Mads growled, “Ya’ wanna go back to bitching?”

“No, I’m being genuine.” Mettaton folded his hands under his chin, “You’ve never been the type to offer advice. No offense, darling, but you tend to blow up at problems rather than solving them.”

“Guilty as charged.” Another long drink, and another glass refilled. “But, no, seriously. I think that’s where you’re goin’ wrong. Seein’ yourself as entertainer first, king second - that’s why people are lookin’ at ya’ and goin’, “Jesus fuck, what an idiot. I can’t trust this bitch to run this place. I gotta pester ‘im all the time to make sure he knows what he’s doin’.” Seemed like the drink was starting to take hold of her, “Does that - does that make sense?”

“I think it does…” Actually, the drink was starting to take hold of him as well. He stared down at his glass, enraptured by his reflection on the glittering surface. “Ohh...dear...but if I do my show less often, won’t that give people less reason to like me? If-if I’m not providing the thing they know and love me for, won’t that just make them all mad?”

Mads rolled her eyes, “Kid, I don’t think they’re gonna up and stop carin’ about ya just cause your’e doin’ less than 50 shows a week. Just air some reruns, no one will care. Ya’ got a lot on your plate now, if they don’t get that, that’s their problem.” She reached out and gently punched him in the shoulder, “And hey, they raise problem, I’ll bet ‘em up for ya’.”

“Guess so…” Mettaton had folded himself up into a ball, hugging his knees with one arm, the other still holding his drink. He was quiet for a long while, not even responding to the small joking (or, likely not joking, considering who it came from.). He stared at his glass, mapping the way the liquid distorted his reflection. The swirling of the brightly colored vodka almost made him look like someone else, some _thing_ else. If he stared just long enough - it almost looked like something horrific. Or...maybe that was just his intoxicated mind talking.

“Wh..what about you, then?” Mettaton’s voice slurred slightly as he lifted his head away from the glass, propping his chin on his knees to look at Mads. “What’ve you been up to? M’much more intrigued by your life, consid...considering yours isn’ plastered for all monsterkind t’see…”

“Hm? Me?” Mads stretched her arms, folding them behind her head. “Eh, nothin’ too excitin’. Hang out in the dump a lot, my ol’ body got fucked up by that human kid that came through.” She grunted, “Sure yer familiar.”

“Quite…” Mettaton mumbled, “Sssoo, tha’s why you were in here?”

“Well _duh_. I don’t break into places just for kicks.” Mads huffed, finishing off the rest of her glass before shoving it into the middle. “Anyways, I tap out. Don’t feel like falling into lava on my way back.”

Safety rails around Hotland...maybe that could be a project. One that made it look like he was doing something. “You’re...you’re leavin’ ssso soon?”

Mads pushed herself up to her feet, gathering up her shoebox and cradling it against her hip. “Metta, it’s been 4 hours. It ain’t a “so soon”. That ain’t even countin’ the time I was here while you were out.”

“Oh…” Mettaton’s voice came out smaller than he had meant it to. Now that he no longer needed to share, he discarded his wine glass, picking up what remained of the bottle instead and wrapping his lips around the mouth of it.

Mads frowned, watching him in his little ball of misery. To her, she thought this was all just an act. “Jesus, if you want me to stay the night, just say so. Don’t gotta act so dramatic about i-”

“I’m scared, Maddie.”

At that, Mads shut her trap real quick. A hiccup come from somewhere in Mettaton’s chest, visible eye welling up with tears. Mads was suddenly very, very uncomfortable, ears pinning flat to either side of her head and giving him a worried look. “Aw c-come on kid. Don’t cry on me now. Come on.”

Too late, one hiccup turned into a fit, and he squeezed the remnants of that bottle to his chest like he was cuddling one of his numerous stuffed animals. He whined loud, tears streaming down his face as he babbled, “I-I don-don’t know wh-what t-to do o-or what I’m su-supposed to do-and-and I’m trying - and I-I’m trying and, and, they hate what I do, th-they hate me-”

“They don’t hate you.” Mads piped up, trying to think of what she was supposed to say here. She wasn’t really a feelings person. Comforting Mettaton when he was this upset had always been Napsta’s department, and vice versa when Napsta was upset.

But guess who wasn’t here now to pass Mettaton off to? Ugh, she knew this day would come. Never like this, but ain’t that what life is? Full of surprises and uncomfortable situations. She wasn’t completely heartless, and didn’t want to leave the poor guy like this but - god, what was she supposed to do here?

“I’m-m going to ru-in everyth-thing and they’re gonna hate m-mee, I don’t want to ruin everythinnnng-” Another sob racked his chest, the bottle shoved back into his mouth and hooking his teeth around it, tilting his head back to chug what was left of it.

“Alright, so what we aren’t gonna do is this.” She stepped forward, wrestling the bottle out of Mettaton’s hands and holding it away from him.

He stared up at her with a hurt look, all smeared makeup and glittery tears. But she wasn’t following for robot puppy dog eyes, no matter how sad they were. She searched the shag carpeting for a cork, and once sealed kicked it under his bed where it wouldn’t be found again. Of course she knew he had a whole cabinet full of this stuff, and he could just get up and grab another bottle but - hey, she was trying. He whimpered as he watched it roll into the darkness, as if he hadn’t registered what had happened until just then.

“You’ve had enough, champ.” Mads folded her arms across her chest as she gave him a stern look. “Don’tcha got any friends you can call over? I’unno, spend some time with them?”

While, yes, just before she had said she was fine staying the night if he just asked normally. That was before she knew she was going to be dealing with a drunk and crying Mettaton, begging her to stay in the room and keep him company until he sobbed himself into exhaustion.

More tears sprung up at the corner of his eye, hyperventilating as fingers clawed through his hair, “I DO-DON’T HAVE ANY FRIENDS! TH-THAT’S THE PROBLEM!”

Mads flinched, dragging her hands down her face now that it was for certain; she was stuck with a drunk metal crybaby. “Alright, alright. Quiet down. Lord above you’re gonna wake the dead screamin’ like that.”

Mettaton quieted down to a soft whining, balling up again and hugging his knees. Mads looked around the room, now...what to do, what to do? Her eyes landed on his bed. Eh, it was a cliche, but not like she had any better ideas. She searched his bedding until she found the end of his charging cable, setting it to the side. “Why don’t ya’ sleep? You’ll feel better in the mornin’”

Surprisingly, he went along with it without any protest. Nodding miserably, he pushed himself up to his feet, stumbling a little bit. Mads caught his arm to try and help out, but that almost pulled her to the ground as well. “YEESH, you’re heavy!”

“M’ metal…” He slurred, pulling his arm from her grasp as he got closer to the bed. Or...tried to anyway. It just spooled outwards as he tried to pull away, Mads having to let it go on her own accord for his hand to drop to the floor. He didn’t bother trying to correct it, flopping against his bed face-first, arm still trailing beside him. The frame creaked under the sudden weight, but held. Must’ve been reinforced, Mads thought.

Mettaton rolled over onto his belly, finally reeling his arm back in to it’s normal length if only so he could snatch the perfume-scented lion he had been sleeping with before. Curling his entire body around it and stuffing his face into it. 

Mads glanced towards the cable she’d set onto the beside, picking it up again and looking between him and it, “So...do you not need this, or?”

Mettaton snatched that from her too, causing Mads to give a startled “hey!” in response. Without pulling his face out of his toy, he fumbled at the back of his neck trying to plug it in. He missed, and then he missed again. So, he tried again, he missed both times, so he-

“Ugh, give it.” Mads took the cable back from him, slotting it into the back of his neck after one attempt. She tugged at it a little bit to make sure it was secure, then backed away. “Now go to sleep.”

Mettaton finally pulled his face out of the stuffed toy, rolling his eye in Mads’ direction, “...Will you stay?”

Well, this was gonna be her night, then. She settled herself onto the floor again, huffing as she propped her chin into her hands. “Yea, yea, I’ll stay.”

“Promise?”

She rolled her eyes, giving an over-exaggerated groan. “Pinkie promise swear on my mama’s life - go to bed.”

Satisfied with that answer, no matter how smarmy, Mettaton tangled himself in his comforter, and was out in record time.

The next time he woke up, the clock read 10am. She was gone again.

Typical.

  
  
  



End file.
